Come back here with my salad!

The BBQ Pit
1

This really happened.

I’m standing in the company cafeteria, considering my lunch options. The entrees look uninspired, so it’s off to the salad bar. Two soups today – Garden Vegetable and Cream of Tomato (quick scan back to the entree line – no Grilled Cheese sandwiches. Is it only me, or is Cream of Tomato without Grilled Cheese akin to, well, Grilled Cheese without Worcestershire?)

Back to the salad bar. There’s one Spinach salad (spinach, walnuts, red onion, etc.) and four Greeks left. Greek salad - feta cheese. Blech.

So my course is set. Lunch is Cream of Tomato soup (sans Grilled Cheese), Spinach Salad. Life will be good.

Now the tragic part. I’m scooping my tomato soup into the styrofoam container when somebody walks up. A clerk from accounting. She scans the salads.

A pregnant moment ensues. She’s eyeing my Spinach Salad - the only one left. I’m standing there with a ladle in my hand. She’s unaware that I’ve formed a relationship with the salad, a strangely shy understanding between us, a promise sweetly tinged with just a knife’s-edge of desire.

Do I speak? Do I warn her away from my intended? No. I do not. It would be unseemly to lay claim to that which is, to all intents and purposes, still within the public domain, the marketplace of ideas (ideas about salads, at any rate). All I can do is stand there, soup dripping off my ladle (not that I now claim “possession” of the ladle, no; I’m not that kind of needy, grasping Salad-desiring wretch).

I stand there, impotent, watching with bated breath as she considers her options. Her options, not mine. I am powerless to effect her decision, having taken the morally correct decision not to impose my will upon her. Having laid aside my prerogative, I have no choice now but to watch as another plays out her hand and, in so doing, decides my fate.

We all know what she does next. How could we not? Given the choices, who would choose aught but the Spinach Salad, with its wallnuts, red onions, and “etc.”? She takes “my salad”, leaving me bereft.

And with feta on my tongue.

2

Yeah – at the moment when you decided not to claim the salad, the outcome was feta compli.

Daniel

3

bitch.

4

“This really happened.”

[sub]Just to be sure, someone should check Snopes. I suggest searching for “salad” + “desire” + “bereft”, or just looking under the Company Melodrama subsection.[/sub]

5

He who hesitates is feta.

6

Spinach in line is saved for nein.

7

Oh, c’mon, 5que, that’s not how it goes.

He who hesitates is tossed.

Daniel

8

Now you know.

Grab the salad first.

Especially if there’s only one left.

9

At first glance, I thought this was a rant about a waitress taking your salad off the table before you got your entree.

Reminds me of my recently passed dear Mom. She ate her salad throughout the entire meal. She would be eating dessert and still be munching on that salad. At one semi-formal function, her attention was diverted and the waiter removed the salad bowl – she chased him back into the kitchen to get it back.

Somehow, I didn’t get Mom’s love of salads. Mostly skip 'em. I do like feta, though.

10

I like feta.

11

That story made me lol.

12

I think you should have tackled the bitch and taken it back.

13

Legally, though, it was best that you did as you did and leafed her alone.

14

Lettuce have some peace, please!

15

I have taken your advice, kind posters (not you guys who advocate violence; you other, wussy ones).

I’ve set aside my desires, and eschewed violence. I let my nameless colleague go in peace with our salad. For my part, I have learned how to set aside material things, moving toward a blissful state free of earthly attachments.

In short, I don’t carrot all.

16

Dorkness, you’re my hero.