Desperate Cuisine
Like many civic minded corporations, my company is having a "food drive" this season. There are five bins outside our lunchroom where people are encouraged to deposit foodstuffs. The collected food will then be given to the homeless as tribute to keep them from eating us for one more year.
No guidelines have been posted as to what types of food should be put in the bins, but I think most people assume canned and dry goods are expected. Cabbage and ground beef, as tasty as they are, would not last long in an unrefrigerated bin. I have as yet not contributed to the bin, mostly because the people who donate the most food have been threatened with a free lunch...with senior management. It shames me to say it, but the prospect of sharing fries with the Executive In Charge Of Red Tape is a greater Evil in my mind than freeing the huddled masses yearning to be full. Perhaps I will don a mask and cape and donate anonymously just when the need is greatest, thereby assuaging guilt and avoiding lunchtime horror at once.
Anyway...the reason I bring up the food bins is that I swear I saw a guy drop a 7-Layer Burrito in there. I was getting some water from the lunch room, and I am certain I saw a 40-something man walk up to the bins with a Taco Bell bag, pull out a burrito-shaped package, and place it in one of the bins.
Now we all know the burrito won't keep. It felt like it was my duty to retrieve it (and yes, eat it) before it spoiled.
However, just as I was getting up the guts to "steal" from the donation pool, one of our security guys walked up to the bin, extracted the burrito, and threw it in a nearby garbage can.
Dismissing how disturbed and confused I was already at the idea of someone actually thinking a Taco Bell burrito would be the perfect addition to a food drive, I was now grappling with a more existential angst over whether to retrieve said burrito from the garbage or not.
Long story short, I didn't. But I had already had lunch. If I'm hungry, I'm capable of anything. I'll have to tell you about the half-eaten pizza in the zoo garbage sometime. Or the gas station hot dog in Thailand. Or what really happened to my dog Brownie.
No guidelines have been posted as to what types of food should be put in the bins, but I think most people assume canned and dry goods are expected. Cabbage and ground beef, as tasty as they are, would not last long in an unrefrigerated bin. I have as yet not contributed to the bin, mostly because the people who donate the most food have been threatened with a free lunch...with senior management. It shames me to say it, but the prospect of sharing fries with the Executive In Charge Of Red Tape is a greater Evil in my mind than freeing the huddled masses yearning to be full. Perhaps I will don a mask and cape and donate anonymously just when the need is greatest, thereby assuaging guilt and avoiding lunchtime horror at once.
Anyway...the reason I bring up the food bins is that I swear I saw a guy drop a 7-Layer Burrito in there. I was getting some water from the lunch room, and I am certain I saw a 40-something man walk up to the bins with a Taco Bell bag, pull out a burrito-shaped package, and place it in one of the bins.
Now we all know the burrito won't keep. It felt like it was my duty to retrieve it (and yes, eat it) before it spoiled.
However, just as I was getting up the guts to "steal" from the donation pool, one of our security guys walked up to the bin, extracted the burrito, and threw it in a nearby garbage can.
Dismissing how disturbed and confused I was already at the idea of someone actually thinking a Taco Bell burrito would be the perfect addition to a food drive, I was now grappling with a more existential angst over whether to retrieve said burrito from the garbage or not.
Long story short, I didn't. But I had already had lunch. If I'm hungry, I'm capable of anything. I'll have to tell you about the half-eaten pizza in the zoo garbage sometime. Or the gas station hot dog in Thailand. Or what really happened to my dog Brownie.
posted by Dean at 11/15/2005 11:49:00 AM
3 Comments:
I'll tell. We're out the zoo. Dean is feeling a bit peckish. There's a pizza box sitting atop one of the garbage cans.
Dean: See if there's any left.
Me: (stupidly lifts lid) Yep.
Dean then takes out an ice cold slice and begins to chow down. I look away, unable to watch, and when I glance back, he's offering our toddler son a bite!
I'll never take my eyes off him again.
I didn't know that there was such a thing as a "dog brownie".
Wow...This goes even beyond the Five Second Rule. Amazing :)
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