Lunchless Thursday

The ‘pea and I rolled out of the house this morning with plenty of time to spare.  The sky was cloudy but the world was light and awakening.  A nice tailwind tickled my heels the entire commute.  The clouds began to break up after a few miles, and high in the sky the sun touched their tops with pink just as I rolled down the long hill to work.  A great start to the day.

Pulling the panniers off the bike and opening their flaps, though, I quickly realized  something was wrong.  Lunch was nowhere to be found, still in the refrigerator at home.  Gah!

It was bound to happen.  At least several times a season I fail to remember either lunch or underwear.  Over the years I’ve improvised solutions to the latter problem, but have never found a way to stash appetizing food in the office.  Anything with a long shelf life starts looking (and tasting) really, really bad after a couple of months.  The exception is chocolate, although no package of Ghirardelli dark squares has ever lasted longer than three weeks in my possession.

Working in a lovely bucolic setting is wonderful much of the time, except on days when I forget my lunch.  It leaves very few options.  I can walk or bike a half-mile uphill to the nearest fast food restaurant (unlimited french fries!), where I haven’t eaten in years.  I can ask a coworker to pick up something when they’re out for lunch, although today most stayed in due to a special event.  Or I can visit the snack machines, where sandwiches dangle with obscure names like “Double Broil Deluxe,” “Triple Stack,” and “Bacon Scrambler.”

Any guesses as to what I did?

a) Stayed hungry
b) Walked up the hill for unlimited fries
c) Bought the Triple Stack
d) Begged a coworker for half their sandwich
e) Ate the whole bag of Ghirardelli chocolates
f) All of the above

If you guessed “a” you obviously don’t know me very well.