My grandfather was very set in his ways. From the age of 14 he worked with the same organisation. He started off as a secretary which is a bit unusual for a male. Typing. I can imagine he would have been a very accurate typist but he probably wouldn’t have been very fast. He didn’t like to get things wrong. 
 

He had peculiar personal habits. Every lunch time he would go to the same sandwich shop and have a ham and pickle sandwich. Every day. The lady in the shop would have his sandwich and drink ready for him when he came in. I’m not sure what drink he had, but I can imagine it would have been sarsaparilla. At home he drank Cottee’s lemon cordial. 
 

When he retired he set up another pretty comfortable routine. Sitting in his chair, poking the fire, going to bowls, smoking his Three Nuns tobacco, watching Family Feud and eating ham and pickle sandwiches. Me and my sister used go around to his house in Surrey Hills and watch the footy in black and white and it was very confusing. Not only was difficult to tell which team was which when North Melbourne played Collingwood but we used to think that our "Tampa" was the goal umpire because the goal umpires had the same get-up as Tampa when he went to bowls. So it was confusing that he was not only umpiring at both ends of the footy ground but he was sitting in his chair giving us horsie rides and letting us blow out his matches all at the same time. 
 

One Sunday afternoon my Tampa went down to my other grandparents’ holiday house and it was to change his life forever. I’m not sure what year it was, but it was probably before I was born. At lunchtime he got introduced to a new piece of technology called a toasted sandwich machine. For some reason there was no ham and pickle so he had a cheese and onion toasted sandwich, and it was the most delicious sandwich he had ever had. So the next day he got my grandma (Nanma) to go out buy the very same toasted sandwich maker. 

  
This discovery set him upon his course for the next 20 years of his life. Every lunch time my Nanma made him toasted cheese and onion sangers. Nanma only ever used brown onions (they had the strongest flavour). Perhaps as a result of this he ate pep-o-mint lifesavers all the time. In fact, he had a milkbar display box full of them on top of his wardrobe. 
 

If my Nanma ever had to go out she would take a pre-made cheese and onion sandwich out of the freezer and leave it on the kitchen bench. By lunch time all he had to do was put it in the toasted sandwich maker. Now some might say this made my grandfather a lazy, chauvinistic male. But they would be wrong Tampa would have been happy to make the sandwiches himself but he loved the way my Nanma made them so much that he couldn’t bear the prospect of having anything different. He loved her for the way she chopped the onions to just the right size and put on just the right amount of margarine. And I say that without any irony. 

  
One day the unthinkable happened and the toasted sandwich maker broke down. Nanma took it to the man to get it fixed and he told her that it would take two days to get the part to repair it. She came home with the news and Tampa suggested they buy one to have as a back-up if it ever broke down again. (It also meant he wouldn’t miss a day of cheese and onion). As luck would have it, the same brand of sandwich maker was on sale, so they bought two in case they ever went out of production. 
  

Nanma toasted his sangers with the new maker until the old one came back from the man. A new toasted sandwich maker can never deliver a good toasty no matter how a fine a unit it may be. It takes a few years for the grill to get that "new" flavour out of it, to get a good base of oil. 
  

Sadly, my grandfather has passed on. And it made me think. When most people die they hope they are going to some great, magical place in the sky (called "heaven" by Christians). But I bet my grandfather was scared. What if this place was strange ? What if this place didn’t have Family Feud, and bowls, and Three Nuns tobacco and lemon cordial and brown onions ? What if this place didn’t have Nanma ?