Food Fun

We've all done it. We've all done stupid things that caused us to end up wearing food. I can think of a few times, but I think it happens so often that I only remember the really outstanding food-related accidents.

I had at least two of these when I worked for Kimball. One was during lunch with my friends at a local Mexican eatery. This pesky fly decided he liked Mexican cuisine as well; as he kept flying around our food. I hate flies. I just know they've landed on some "poop de jour" just before landing on my food. I kept shooing this thing away with my hand, but he kept coming back.

I shooed once too often. Just as my friend DeeDee was lifting a fork to her mouth, the fly returned. As he flew in front of her fork, I did a back-swat. Of course the fly just flew away, but I ended up hitting DeeDee's forkful of food with the back of my hand. That swift move neatly deposted all that nice red Mexican food onto DeeDee's chest.

I had to laugh. It was always a running joke that either DeeDee or I would end up wearing some of our lunch. For some reason we had not yet slopped any food on us, so it was inevitable.

One other time I was getting ready to give some Windows classes to some of our folks at the 30th Street plant. I went to lunch; and as I usually did, got a refill of iced tea before leaving. I had just enough time to make it to the class. I got into the car and put my huge cup of iced tea in the seat beside me. When I grabbed the seat belt, I realized I had sat on it. So I lifted my rump to pull the belt out from under me. As I did that, the iced tea fell on the seat right where I was sitting. When I sat down, the lid popped off and I was drenched.

I was a half-hour from home and class was due to start in five minutes. All I could do was tie a sweater around my soaked butt and teach the class. I did explain to them why I was drenched, but these guys knew me and nothing I did ever surprised them.

After Kimball, I went to work for a small technology company in the same town. On my second day there, I was sporting a new ivory sweater. At lunch, I went to one of the downtown eateries where they were serving meatloaf. When the waitress served the meatloaf special to me, I grabbed the ketchup and squirted a very generous supply of the red stuff on my meatloaf. Then I saw my utensils on the other side of the table.

Instead of doing the smart thing and getting up to retrieve my eating tools, I simply reached over the table to pick them up. This swift move deposited my...well, you know...right in that big pile of ketchup. I had a huge circle of ketchup on my chest in the worst spot possible. Again, I was more than a half-hour from home. All I could do is slump to hide my spot until I quickly finished my lunch. Then I took off to the other side of town to a clothing store. I explained to the clerk what I had done and she let me wear the replacement out of the store (after paying for it, of course). Since it was basically the same color of my other sweater, no one even noticed.

...and now I'm queasy from thinking about meatloaf and Mexican food. I guess this stomach bug IS still with me. I've gotta run.