At work we have a security guard and he's really nice, but... yesterday as I was going outside to eat my lunch he stopped me and said he'd buy me lunch if I'd go get him two slices of cheese pizza. An offer like that I cannot refuse, so I brought him back his cheese pizza and I saw him settle down in the back to eat it. Then, this morning, I was talking to S-Lo, the cleaning lady about how sometimes she finds forgotten 2-day old cups of coffee on her rounds, and she told me that the security guard used to be terrible about stashing food and forgetting about it. "Look," she said, going over to a filing cabinet in the far back corner of my basement office, "this is where I used to find old donuts and..." we both gasped as she opened the drawer and revealed a slice of day-old cheese pizza and the remnants of another on a paper plate stuffed into the cabinet drawer.
S-Lo went and scolded the guard about the pizza, but she couldn't convince him to throw it away. Instead, I watched when he came downstairs at lunchtime, retrieved the pizza, sprinkled it with water, then microwaved and ate it. I was trying to eat my own lunch in the back, and read my mystery novel, but the guard came over and sat down with me and started talking. I really just wanted to read in silence, but he didn't pick up on my body language (staring and my book and not answering his questions with actual words) and kept talking to me about random things like the merits of one frozen food brand over the other, and how to properly cook corn on the cob. Ugh. Why can't it be summer anymore, so I can go outside and eat my lunch in peace with the regular New York crazies?
Or, I have another idea. Maybe I should bring a change of clothes to work and go for a run on my lunch break? A short run then would be better than not running at all, which is what I've been doing because I cannot seem to find the energy in the morning, and at night when I have energy, it's dark and scary on the streets of Harlem. A lunchtime run would solve my exercise need and my desire to not talk to people while I'm on my lunch break. Hmmm. It just might work.
3 comments:
I have nothing terribly interesting to add, except this brings back memories of a place I used to work. I was the low man on the totem pole and often had to be the lunch man. But they did have a nice policy on that...they called it "you fly, I'll buy." So while I had to take a short drive to bring lunch back for everyone, mine was free. I also had a slightly larger say in where we got lunch from, since they couldn't force me to go anyway.
There were usually two or three of them who had to split my lunch, so it wasn't a bad deal for them to pay less than two bucks to not have to go anywhere. We were in a not-so-great part of town so take-out was particularly attractive anyway.
Man, if I went for a run or walk at lunch, I would be so sweaty when I got back it would be unbearable for the people and the cats. It does help the afternoon to not be so sleepy to expend a little energy in the middle of the day, though.
I almost dry-heaved when I read that he ate that pizza. Horrible.
(Also, it's confusing to read about Donnie doing basically my job once.)
I vote for the lunch time job. You can always go into the bathroom and freshin up the sweaty parts. Besides it is cool up north now and u could prolly get away with it.
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