Food, Folly and Work

So I did the most embarrassing thing yesterday. When people have extra food at work that they dont' want, they leave it on the counter in the kitchen. I went in there at two pm and saw a sandwich sitting on a paper plate. I was so excited because I was starving and hadn't eaten anything since eight in the morning. I was also exited because it looked like corned beef and it was Saint Patrick's day, much better then the salad I was planning on eating. So, I took half of the sandwich (I didn't want to be the office a-hole and not leave some for others) and brought it to my desk. With in two minutes I had inhaled the meat off the sandwich and threw out the bread. I have a hard time digesting white flour, yes, apparently I'm 80.

Approximately five minutes after I had finished the sandwich, I hear my boss yelling from the kitchen, "Someone ate half my sandwich?!". There was a moment of silence and I could feel the blood start to rush to my face. Another coworker yelled, "What? No!" then I heard their speculation "Maybe it was one of the auditors. Jack, you should confront them!" and another, "Who would just take a sandwich? That's so strange." Then my boss again: "I can't leave my food on the counter for five minutes without someone taking it?"

Oh. My. God. What to do? I contemplated my dilemma and options for the next 5 seconds or so. Maybe I should just not say anything. But then I remembered that the bread was still in my trashcan. Maybe I should smuggle the bread into the bathroom and flush it down the toilette piece by piece. No, it will never work, the walk to the bathroom is too long and I would surely pass someone on the way. Damn that bread. Stop staring at me bread. Maybe I should eat the bread from the trashcan. I looked in, picked up the bread and held it in my hand for a second. I peered back into the trash and saw old candy wrappers (they are mine, no big deal), pieces of paper (whatever, paper is pretty clean) and old tissues from my daily allergy attacks (It's my own snot...No. Pull yourself together woman!). Oh god. I sat listening to my coworkers plotting their confrontation of the auditors. They were getting more and more incensed. The poor auditors, I can't let one of them take my fall. I put the bread back in the trash can and executed my plan.

Taking a deep breath I walked over the circle of coworkers which had formed pretending like I hadn't heard them talking. One said, "Did you hear? Someone stole half of Jack's sandwich". My boss adding, "Preposterous!". I feigned letting the information sink in and then allowed shock to register on my face and stated, 'OH MY GOD! It was me! I ate your sandwich, I'm so sorry. I just saw it sitting there, and thought..someone was giving it away". The first part of my sentence was loud due to a sort of false confidence I had from having not eaten out of my trashcan, this girl has standards, yes. But by the end of my statement I had trailed off to being almost completely inaudible and ended with a strange cough noise to punctuate that I was finished speaking. I sat there with a stupid grin on my face as if to say "Silly me!". They all looked at me with deep confusion as I shifted from one shocked coworkers face to another trying to find someone to meet my gaze. However, each coworker would avoid my sandwich stealing eyes and look at the floor or the wall or at each other. I finally locked at one coworker who appeared to be on the verge of something. Yelling? Crying? Screaming 'Oh the humanity'? Then it came out, a deep loud from the pit of the stomach laugh as she stated, "That is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Seriously, hysterical." My boss, whose sandwich I ate, looked wounded at first (I mean, I had almost quite literally taken the food out of his mouth). But then his face turned red (I think he was so embarrassed for me that it made him embarrassed) and he too gave a good laugh. I offered to buy him another sandwich to which he graciously declined and walked to his office with the non eaten half of his sandwich.

So now, I'm that girl. I'm the girl that eats other people's office food. Sweet.