Fusilli
The other day I was eating lunch at a food court near my office. This particular day, I was eating pasta from the Italian joint there, a real mom-and-pop affair. Papa takes the orders and mans the cash, and mama slaves over the hot stove tossing your pasta of choice into frying pans of freshly-made sauce. It’s a food court Italian counter that tries to make you forget, in some measure, that you’re in the human equivalent of a grazing pasture.
The food is usually tasty, and this day was no different. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help noticing as I lifted a fork-full that many of the fusilli in my dish looked amiss. A closer inspection revealed that many of the poor fellows had almost completely shed their trademark spiral shape; they had unfurled into plain, flat, straight noodles. Mere limp, shapeless cuts, no longer able to absorb and augment the sauce effectively. My fusilli had lost their character, their purpose.
As I sat there chewing my food, I wondered if this was a sign of what happens when you work in an office every day, eating your lunches in a food court.
Previously: MacTricks
Subsequently: Do the Russians Love Their Children Too?
Comments
maybe you should bring your lunch to work……
— joyce | Jan. 15, 2004 — 7 PM
I’m glad Joyce suggested what she did because this reminds me of why _I_ don’t bring my lunch to work: the cafeteria is always full of people I don’t want to talk to nor see during my lunch hour. If it weren’t for those people, I would gladly bring my lunch with me, but somehow, despite the sometimes unreasonable lunch menus and prices, I prefer the food courts over the work caf.
— Bosko | Jan. 17, 2004 — 8 AM
Agreed, Bosko. The Worker Cafeteria, like its little sister High School Cafeteria, is a place of too much small talk and too little humour.
I also feel important to occasionally avert my gaze from my computer screen, which precludes eating at my desk.
— Luke | Jan. 20, 2004 — 3 PM