What's for Lunch?

Lunch. It is one of my three favorite meals of the day. And I eat it every day, too - almost without fail. If I don’t eat lunch, it usually means that something is really wrong. Even if I am not hungry, even if I just had breakfast two hours before, I like to eat my lunch.

Lunch for me usually doesn’t have to be anything grand and fabulous. Most days at work, I eat the same thing for lunch: a turkey and cheese sandwich (lightly toasted in the office toaster oven), some not-fresh fruit (usually pineapple, occasionally peaches), and some cookies (almost always chocolate chip). Like I said, nothing extravagant. Almost too ordinary for some people, but just fine for me. I fix my lunch every morning, and I apparently like routines, because I can put together my lunch pretty quickly. Unless we are out of something, and then it takes quite a while to do something different. But that doesn’t happen all that often.

But every now and then we do something different. Our office is a small office, and it is next to two other small offices. On occasion, we will get together and have a potluck lunch. I say on occasion, but we really don’t need much of an occasion. Sure, we do it around Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we have also been known to do it in early October. Such as yesterday. What was the occasion? Someone decided we should have one. And because most all of us in the three offices like to eat, there usually isn’t any complaining about it.

The potluck term is a loose one, too, because there really isn’t any luck involved. We have potluck meals at church from time to time, and everyone brings pretty much whatever they want to bring. That’s where the “luck” comes in. I have been at church gatherings before where everyone brought vegetables, and no one brought any meat dishes. That was fine - we all enjoyed the vegetables. On most of those occasions, though, we end up with several kinds of casseroles. Which is just fine with me, because I haven’t come across too many casseroles that I don’t like. And if you get one you aren’t really fond of, you can just mix it in with the next one on your plate to create a casserole casserole. It just might turn out okay.

But our office potlucks really aren’t lucky at all, because we all sign up ahead of time for what we are going to bring. Knowing how offices of architects and engineers are, and knowing that we are mostly male, if we didn’t sign up, we would probably end up with lots of chips and dip, and some bread bought from the store on the way to work in the morning. And maybe some plates to eat it on. Therefore, all the luck is taken out of it, just to make sure we have some meat, and maybe some vegetables, too.

Yesterday’s potluck had an Italian theme. We had lasagna, baked spaghetti, Chicken Alfredo, pasta and pesto, and salad. With some good deserts on the side, too. Of course, you can’t have just one thing, like lasagna - you have to try them all. Or at least I do. And then it turns out that I have eaten a much bigger lunch than what I am used to eating. Which is okay, mostly.

But I’m not the only one who ate a lot. One of the other guys asked about having an Italian Siesta afterward. Do they have siestas in Italy? Probably not. But they probably do have naps.

Especially if they eat as much Italian food as we did.

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