My Disgusting Lunch

My husband is on the Atkins diet. We started on it together, but, as always happens, I could no longer stand the sight of meat. Plus, I've been under the weather, and when I am under the weather, I crave pasta and can't even think about meat.

So at dinnertime, he does his thing and I do mine. I will prepare something for myself, and he will prepare something for himself.

Last night I came home, feeling quite exhausted, and found a family size Stouffers escalloped chicken and noodles casserole in the freezer. Mmm, that sounded like the perfect dinner for me. And since I've not made it to the grocery store in a while and have no bread in the house, I thought I could bring the leftovers to work for lunch.

So I put the frozen dinner in the oven as soon as I got home. It has to cook for 66 minutes. When it was done, I just helped myself to a bowl full and sat down to watch TV. The husband came in and asked "what can I eat?" I said "well there's lots of stuff in the freezer." He said "but none of it appeals to me." He looked in the fridge. He looked in the freezer. He was like a forlorn child. I left the kitchen thinking he'll figure something out.

Meanwhile, I was not happy with the temperature of the casserole. After cooking for 66 minutes, it was barely lukewarm. I started to eat it that way, and finally, realizing it had no appeal, I stuck it in the microwave. I was amused when I went back into the kitchen and saw that my husband had helped himself to the casserole. I smiled to myself thinking he's had enough of Atkins too.

Later on, I spooned a helping into a tupperware container to take for my lunch.

Work was not good today. For some reason, I could not get into my word files that I needed to work on. No one in IT could figure it out. I kept getting messages about not having access. I had counted on getting certain things done. And then, another co-worker came to work very sick. I stopped by her office and told her she looked terrible. She was coughing non-stop. She told me she had a temp of 101.9. I told her she needed to go home. Meanwhile, many other co-workers were very annoyed she was there. Just this week, our company put anti-bacterial soap and Clorox wipes all over the place. The containers promised to keep flu germs away. As I was filling my coffee cup, reading one of the containers, I laughed to myself, thinking they can put all these germ killers on every visible surface, but if you have a sick person who comes to work, these germ killers will do nothing.

Finally it was lunchtime. I walked down a floor and heated my chicken and noodles. I carried my tupperware container back to my office to eat at my desk. I took a bite, and damn, if it wasn't a deja vu experience - it was barely lukewarm. So I walked back down to the kitchen, reheated it, and with the lid half on, started to walk back to my office. Then - I have no idea how it happened, but the tupperware container flew out of my hand and my chicken and noodles were scattered all over the carpeting. "SHIT!" came out of my lips before I could think about it. My helpful co-worker Donna was in the kitchen and heard something fall, followed by my rather loud "shit." She said to someone else in the lunchroom "that didn't sound good." She came out to investigate and saw my huge mess. And I mean huge. It looked like someone had gotten sick all over the office carpeting.

So I grabbed a trash can and started to pick up the pieces. But chicken and noodles comes with a lot of sauce, and sauce is hard to pick up. Donna and another co-worker helped, and I grabbed some of those Clorox wipes to try to get the cream sauce off the carpet. Donna, being much more fastidious than me, decided we should leave paper towels over the spot to help blot it up. As other co-workers came in from lunch, they wondered "who got sick." The news that no one got sick but klutzy Bonnie spilled her food was soon through the office.

Meanwhile, I carried my tupperware container back to my office. It had one spoonful of chicken and noodles left. I ate it. It was not appealing. It was lukewarm again.

I don't think I'll ever be able to eat Stouffers chicken and noodles again.