I love to share.
I’ll share clothes, my car, my kids, my dog.
Come over…I’ll even share my wine. What’s mine is yours, except for my fries.
Having lunch with friends provides three important necessities.
- Much needed catch up of gossip, familiarizing ones self with ideas and professional strategies.
- Nourishment. And by nourishment, I mean food that doesn’t suck.
- Determining if unfamiliar eateries will be praised or bashed by fellow cohorts.
With this being said, if the mood is right, and on that day I don’t give a shit about grease, I’m ordering the turkey-avocado club with hot and perfectly salted fresh fries. I do this for a reason. I do it because I want to temporarily indulge in Man’s poor excuse for a potato. I want salty morsels of fried sin. If not well prepared, I’ll send them back for proper execution. They are meant to complement my meal better than a mixed green salad…at least for that day.
There is nothing that annoys me more than when my fellow lunch ladies order their low fat (and often gluten free) selections but then reach on over to steal a cluster of my hot and salty fries. I’ll try to ignore the behavior, hoping they will attend to their salad du jour. Yet, once they taste one they don’t stop and interrupt conversation and eye contact with glances to my plate assessing the fry count. They are strategizing their next move. This causes me to consume the fries like a starved dog; hoarding them all to myself, ignoring the turkey-avocado club. No one wants a bite of that.
When this happens, one hopes a few expressions of disapproval will suffice. But, depending on the closeness of the relationship, or the deliciousness of the french fries, the nonverbal practice isn’t always successful. At this point you can try the raised eyebrow method or you can take a much more abrupt approach and simply say: “Dude, stop eating my fries.”
The times I’ve put on the armor and sword, braving such a remark, the responsive attitude tends to be submissive apologies and an unhumorous joke. Yet, I’ve found the defensive and denial approach to be the most favored response. It’s like walking in a room after your kid drops an f-bomb. The look of guilt, and a little bit of kiss ass behavior tends to determine the favored punishment.
So, for the time being, if we’re having lunch and I order fries, keep in mind that you, too, can choose to refrain from ordering from the healthy side of the menu. Then together, we can enjoy the taste of Mans’ poor excuse for a potato, hands to ourselves.
Realandrandom 