Lunch is becoming an issue. The office I work in is a completely open concept (sans flying erasers) with a kitchen unit to one side. There is no lunch room as workaholicism is promoted within the department (with the exception of Canadian temps who use hotmail all day). There is a fridge and a microwave, but to eat my lunch I would then have to return to my desk where I already spend 6.5 of my 7.5 hours twiddling my thumbs (in the morning I get to sort and deliver the mail). Not intending to extend this. My other option would be to heat the food, then take it down in the elevator for 13 floors and eat outside. Can't see this as being popular. Option 3 is to take sandwiches (which I ruled out due to my current gag-at-the thought phase) or salads, which require another trip to the grocery store (my spinach froze in the fridge, again). It's a predicament.

So each day I wander Queen Street looking for lunch. Love would be nice too, but lunch is my first priority. There are a good many shops and food courts along the way but I have a problem. I can't handle the pressure. As many of you have experienced, as soon as I look at a menu I lose all decision making power (unless it's 3am and we're at the China Garden). This passiveness haunts me here. You walk into these food courts and first of all I have to choose from about 10 different restaurants, then from the menu for the chosen restaurant, most of which I have never heard of and the ingredients of which make me mildly suspicious. But through all of this, the people behind the counter (particularly in the Asian places) are overly eager to serve. I think as soon as you walk within a 5 foot radius of the counter they have a buzzer that goes off. "Can I help you?" umm, one minute, smile nod. And it starts. The staring. They stare at you which in an unnerving way. "yes over here" they say after giving you another 5 seconds of decision time. Smile, nod, look back at menu, be obvious in my indecision. Still Staring. Another 3 seconds pass. "Yes, you want lunch?" I can't take it. I walk away, but only to have the same thing happen at the next place and the next. So typically, I spend 15 minutes trying to find a place to eat, then another 5-10 in the line as I have chosen the busiest place. Busy equals no pressure from servers. I get stressed. Lucky I get to come back to work to relax.

But today... today was even scarier. I ordered something (an unfamiliar choice but a pretty good one) and had to sit down and wait for the girl to bring it over. (I liked her. She didn't stare. She looked away and gave me my space. I actually didn't really want to eat there, but appreciated her understanding and used the time to make a decision I felt good about). And when she did bring it (rice with veggies in a sauce) ... there was no fork. Only 2 wooden sticks. Chopsticks. So we meet again. I couldn't get up to get a fork as the overzealous table cleaner would have dumped my lunch. I had to do it. I remembered previous lessons I had been given, tried to survey those around me to see how they were holding them... keep bottom one stable... I started to get the hang of it but then I felt the pressure.. I looked up and realized I was probably the only inexperienced person in the room and that everyone was watching and laughing and saying look at her. Well they weren't really, but they had every right too. I think some rice hit the table beside me. And I might have dropped a carrot along the way. But I ate most of it. Eventually. There was a bowl on the tray too. At first I thought it was a finger bowl and the nice server girl recognized that I would be in ruins by the end of my meal. Then I noticed it was steaming and she had given me a spoon. It was boiling water with green onions in it. Hmmm... feeling the pressure now as I was sure I was entertaining someone at a nearby table, I tried it. Along with the green onion and water, there was apparently an entire box of salt in the soup. I left it at that, with the spoon in it.

As I left the table two thoughts ran through my mind: did I make that much mess? and of Dad's favorite trick of putting a spoon in the finger bowl and telling the waitress the soup was bland.