this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

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Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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(And thus perfectly acceptable to eat for lunch)

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[–] immutable@lemmy.zip 47 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 19 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Can't believe this isn't already here...

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

If poptarts are ravioli, but also a sandwich, does that mean that all ravioli are sandwiches from the ingredient/structural rebel perspective?

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

Makes perfect sense to me, but I'm both a structure and ingredients anarchist.

[–] grysbok 19 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Cake is a quick bread, which might not count as bread for the purposes of sandwiches.

Further study is required. OP, how was your lunch cake?

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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 15 points 5 days ago (6 children)

We don't have this problem in Australia, where a sandwich is narrowly understood as being between two slices of bread cut from a loaf.

If it's on a bread roll it's not a sandwich it's a roll. If it's on a burger bun it's not a sandwich it's a burger. A sub is not a sandwich, it's a sub. A hot dog cannot be considered a sandwich, nor could a cake or anything else that's clearly not a sandwich.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago

What about a burger on toasted bread slices?

Example of Sonic burger which is on Texas Toast slices instead of a bun

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

So if you put peanut butter and jelly between hamburger buns, it's a burger?

[–] not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

No, it's an abomination. But also yes.

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

✅ Cream cheese on banana bread

Got it.

[–] Tujio@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Get the fuck out! I am not making you a cottage cheese pastrami sandwich on banana bread! That would severely damage my reputation.

[–] ccunning@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Let me ask you a question: how do you feel about frilly toothpicks?

[–] rivalary@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

Yep, drives me nuts when they call burgers sandwiches. If you gotta classify them together, call them handhelds.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Pizza is technically an open-faced sandwich, but it's still pizza.

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[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 11 points 5 days ago

Yes, and?

Nordic (or Finnish/Swedish at least) "sandwich cake".

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sandwich cake is already a term that means the same thing as layer cake. The classic combination of two layers of Victoria sponge with strawberry jam and whipped cream in between is called a Victoria Sandwich. Anyone arguing that a layer cake isn't a sandwich is just illiterate, not a defender of semantic specificity.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I've never heard of anyone putting jelly/jam on cake and now I want to try it.

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My spouse makes one that way that everyone we know goes wild about. Literally just yellow cake, cooked strawberries, and homemade whipped cream. We're both baffled by how popular it is, but I guess the Midwest isn't used to real whipped cream.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I'd say most Americans aren't used to real whipped cream in general lol. Just the other week, I went to a Harry Potter-themed birthday party for who is essentially my niece and my brother made a British recipe for whipped cream for the butterbeer slushies we made. It was thick as hell and pretty damn good.

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The butterbeer was literally cream soda with a small leveled spoonful of butterscotch per can. Then we had a slushie machine then we put it in and it came out perfect.

[–] Gerudo@lemm.ee 1 points 5 days ago

One of my favorite cakes is a chocolate traditional cake and frosting but the inner layer is raspberry jam. It's so good.

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[–] BlueLineBae@midwest.social 9 points 5 days ago

Ice cream sandwiches are just ice cream between 2 dense cake layers. So by this definition, you'd be correct!

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

Cereal is soup

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Is cake bread though?

lasagna is a sandwich.

[–] Windex007@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Cakes predate the Earl of Sandwich so really a sandwich is a subset of cake

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

OBJECTION!

How can a sandwich be a cake if cakes are sweet and sandwiches are salty?

[–] uienia@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Sandwiches predates him as well.

[–] Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

I feel like that's more a case for converging evolution than relationship. That actually makes this easier to deal with though.

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

More importantly than having bread on the outside is being handheld.

Yes, you can eat anything with your hands, but cake is typically a fork food.

[–] Today@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

In my house most baked goods are eaten without a fork, one small sliver/square at a time, while standing at the counter and repeatedly saying, "I'm just going to have one small bite."

[–] not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Once could, if so inclined, put cake between two slices of bread. It'd be hard to argue that's not a sandwich.

[–] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

If the cake layers don't get your fingers messy and don't crumble when you hold it, I'll allow it. It also has to be small enough to be able to take a bite out of all the layers at once.

[–] magnetichuman@fedia.io 5 points 5 days ago
[–] proper@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If cake is a sandwich then a loaf of sliced bread is a sandwich.

Never had a bread sandwich I see

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

It’s a stack of bread sandwiches- where the number of sandwiches is:

total number of slices / 3

[–] Nosavingthrow@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Is that the definition of a sandwich, or is there something about 'sanwhich' that transcends its constituent parts? Could 'sandwich' be a cluster of different properties that, when considered as a whole, become 'sandwhich'? I think to get to the heart of this 'sandwhich' question, we need not look at the sandwhich but instead at 'cake'. What is 'cake' and do those propertie exclude sandwhich? What common aspects do cake and sandwhich have, and are both of those elements essential?

[–] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Words aren’t isomorphic to their dictionary definitions—words had commonly-accepted meanings long before the existence of dictionaries. Dictionary definitions are just an attempt to come up with a heuristic for identifying things as instances of the term in question, but they’re never perfect—and the real-world usage is ontologically prior.

If the dictionary definition of sandwich fails to distinguish cakes from sandwiches, it’s just an imperfect definition (like all definitions are)—and we can leave it at that.

[–] Nosavingthrow@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Alright, so is a cake a sandwich?

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Bread pudding is a brown sugar sandwitch.

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