Seven Sandwiches to Contemplate

“The Lust for me; the Sloth for him,” an auburn-haired college sophomore urged a waitstaffer across the counter at the Newman Catholic Center Cafe on the UMass Amherst campus.

It’s sinfully appetizing these days at the cafe, where the Seven Deadly Sins sandwich menu offers customers a septet of alternatives that infuse lunch with added meaning. Sandwich prices run from the $3.95 Greed—four unadorned hamburg sliders on a bun—to the $6.95 Envy—a wrap swaddling two varieties of cheese melted around fried chicken and broccoli.

The themed sandwich menu was the inspiration of cafe operations manager Jason Wonsey, who has run the establishment since early in the last decade. “I’d wanted to do this from the beginning, but I waited a couple of years to test the waters,” he confesses. Whether patrons themselves have tendered their own confessions about sandwiches to the Newman Center’s priests-in residence seems improbable, but the Church does have its miracles.

Participate in a Profane Survey. How much/how often do you indulge in the Seven Deadly Sins? Psychology professor Richard Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of Quirkology and The Luck Factor is conducting an on-line survey on the subject. To learn more about the survey, which is associated with the Edinburgh International Science Festival, visit his web site here.