A Lunch Time Disaster

I was such a good little recessionista this morning. I made a sandwich and fixed a Tupperware full of cottage cheese that I have been eating for six days straight and which I now hate with the burning passion I usually reserve for Rush Limbaugh, but there are starving children pretty much everywhere and also who knew that cottage cheese would start to taste like tainted milk after a few days in the fridge?), grabbed a container of pineapple (I am like the poster child for good nutrition, obviously) and treated myself to two pieces of Dove dark chocolate, which I tossed into a paper shopping bag with the rest of my lunch.

I got to work, put my food in the fridge, tossed the paper shopping bag in the kitchen garbage can, and went about my day. I had the cottage cheese for breakfast. It was kind of gross but I just kept thinking “Osteoporosis!” Which, in restrospect, might have made it taste worse—there’s nothing like visualizing bone density while gumming wet, tasteless curds.

The only better diet trick is looking at this while trying to eat. It works for sex, too.

I had a ton to do, so time flew by and suddenly it was time for lunch. I ate my sandwich while reading online gossip and followed it with the pineapple. I was saving the dove chocolates for that dreaded 3 pm blood sugar drop, which generally makes me reach for the only food substance I have at my desk: a pack of Orbit melon mint gum. I know that sounds disgusting, and it is; I got a free pack of every single flavor last year and melon mint is the last man standing. I have a daily Jedi mind fight with myself over whether to succumb and chew on a tiny stick that tastes like cantalope spiked with Ajax or surrender to lethargy.

Anyway, the point is: As Robert Burns wrote, the best laid chocolates of mice and men oft go awry. When I went to get my chocolates I realized that they were not in the fridge. Then I realized that I had no memory of actually putting them in the fridge. Slowly, it dawned on me that they were still in the paper shopping bag, which was now at the bottom of a company-wide trash can. [Picture me screaming this next part in warped slow-motion] Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I ran into the kitchen and was about to leap into the trash can like I was Cary Elwes from The Princess Bride and the garbage was the fire swamp and the chocolates were Buttercup, but then I noticed my boss sitting at the table nearby reading a book. He looked up and smiled. If it had been anyone else I might have just gone for it, but this is a person whose specific job it is to fire employees who might have a mental illnesses that would interfere with their work, the first signs of which could include digging through a communal trash can for food. I got a glass of water while stealing longing glimpses at the garbage.

Later on, after the boss left, I went back into the kitchen for another try. But as soon as I lifted off the top of the trash can, I knew I had lost my battle already (again, I used the term “battle,” much like “fight,” loosely). I tossed my bag in at 10:00am; people’s half-eaten lunches were now standing between me and my chocolates. If I were to scavenge for them now, it would certainly be a wet and unpleasant journey through a murky sediment of salad greens, pizza grease, and coffee grounds.

So the bad news is, I lost my chocolates today.

On the other hand, the good news is that at least I know I have limits*

*If the kitchen door had a lock, however, I wouldn’t even be writing this right now. I would be enjoying the rich chocolatey goodness, while trying to ignore the stench of salad dressing emanating from my suspiciously stained clothes.