My Family’s Money

I have to admit that I am a pretty big mooch. Today we had some people from corporate come into the office for meetings with a recently acquired company to have one of those “where-do-we-go-from-here” discussions. In the past, when somebody comes from corporate it can sometimes mean a free lunch. These lunches are always good. I really like them.

I got all excited about the prospect of free lunch as I was introduced to all the new faces from our newest acquisition. I remember thinking, “Boy, it sure would be easier to remember this persons name over a steaming plate of Phad Thai.” I didn’t really think that, but it sure would have been a lot easier to remember their names if we had been! Instead I was coming back from the bathroom and everyone was already engaged in conversations. Since I’m not really an anybody, I was content for the simple introductions since I will probably never see these people again – but the prospect of eating with them was still taunting me with it’s illusive deliciousness. Almost as soon as they were introduced they were off to a secluded place of meeting to hash out strategies to destroy our competitors and leverage that big rock with that newfangled lever thingy that we just invented. I have neither leverage nor a lever to leverage anything, all I wanted was a free lunch.

I felt the hunger hit me at 11:12:13 AM – a full 0:47:47 away from the most probable time that a possible lunch might be announced. I squirmed and I squawked. I drank and I drooled. I hunger and I howled. Nearly a full hour had past and I had used up every trick in the book to take my mind of the hunger – I drank water, listened to music, did something interesting, worked, talked to a co-worker – but still the hunger pressed on. At around 12:30 PM my cubicle neighbor got up and made himself lunch, a casualty to hunger. Then my boss left the office to go get a bite. My spirits began to drop and I felt the hunger creep in anew.

I had to eat something – and here is the point where my moochness really kicks in. Since I had to eat, I quietly took out my peanut butter and honey sandwich from my lunch and proceed to eat it as covertly as I possibly could so that in the off chance that the guys from corporate came by I could quickly stash my sandwich so that it will look like I wasn’t eating. While eating my sandwich I actually stashed it twice! Both on false alarms. I still had hope.

That hope was soon dashed when somebody came by and I overheard that the people in the meeting had already eaten. Convinced that freeness was now impossible I made my way to the fridge and got out the rest of my lunch to eat. I am such a stinking mooch.