Working Lunch

Walking out of the office for lunch today, I regretted my decision to wear shoes with no socks as my feet were hurting with every step. ‘Another reason to complain about the sunshine’, I thought grumpily. I fancied a lasagne for lunch. First I thought I would buy a paper. It was too depressing in the newsagent with the front pages emblazoned with invitations to ‘shop a moron’. Yet another reason for it to start raining soon, it might stop all this rioting and looting.

With a more upmarket magazine, I winced my way to the café a bit further down the high street, where I had once enjoyed an excellent Italian lasagne. My heart sank when I saw an anaemic specimen plonked at the back of the counter, that looked like it had been languishing at the bottom of a vast deep freeze for millennia. My heart sank further when I heard the depressing beep as a microwave was pressed into action.

What I expected arrived on my plate, pale and soggy, sitting in a puddle of tepid fat.

I was so hungry, I’m ashamed to say I ate it anyway.

Leaving the café, I realised I needed something to wash the taste of gristle out of my mouth. I decided that the stall offering curried goat wasn’t likely to help, so hobbled into my local Superdrug for a Bounty. For once, I was pleased there was a queue that would give my sore feet a rest, and the opportunity to ponder the merchandise on the shelves. I spotted the perfect couple with perfect bodies, in perfectly white swimming costumes and perfect bronze skin with a backdrop of perfectly blue water on the advert for San Tropez suncream. She looked like she never had to hobble down high streets in badly fitting shoes for badly cooked café fare. Mind you, Coleen Rooney was looking a bit faded on her gift box of toiletries designed to help me marry a footballer. The box was torn and dusty, the plastic window to the designer life beyond sagged like the sales in JD Sports.

Back at my desk, I took my shoes off. I might not be about to marry a footballer or shop a moron, but I’ve got a cup of tea and a Bounty, so all is right with the world again.