Lunch

I'll warn anyone reading upfront, that this is a pointless story, but sometimes there's just not much else going on.

So John & I are on a budget and are trying not to spend a lot on lunch. This isn't really a problem for him, b/c the cafeteria at MUSC is relatively cheap. Lunch anywhere else is not. Remember when lunch used to only cost $5? I blinked and it now costs $8. So, I try to bring my lunch to work whenever I can.

I had to work at a client's office for 2 days this week, so decided to buy lunch for those 2 days. Today I was taking another client to lunch (means the firm's paying, not me), and I would bring my lunch the other two days.

Well about 10am, my client lunch was cancelled. So I was forced to buy my lunch again today.

Because our partners are so, so nice (or b/c they want us to have no excuse to leave our desk & stop billing clients - whichever way you choose to look at it), they send our runners to pick up lunch every day for those that want it. I normally don't do this b/c they don't go to cheap places. But it was raining like crazy this morning, so I decided to use their services & resigned to the fact that I would have to lunch for the 3rd time this week. I ordered a 1/2 size salad for $7 (yes, $7 will only get you half of a salad).

About 11:30, the ruuner tells me he tried to order it, but they no longer have the 1/2 size. He wants to know if I'd rather have the whole ($10). I was already not happy about spending $7, I definitely didn't want to spend $10. So I told him just to cancel it & he gave me my $ back.

So at noon, it wasn't raining as hard, so I headed out to get lunch. On the way I spoke with John & we decided to meet for lunch at the MUSC cafeteria. Traffic was HORRIBLE trying to get to MUSC, so I turned down some side roads, trying to get around the Calhoun Street traffic. I'm on a one way street with lots of cars in front of me & behind me. Then I realized why traffic is so bad. The street in front of me was horribly flooded. I watched two other cars in front of me drive through it. One was an SUV & the other one was about my car's size. They both seemed to make it through ok. I would have turned around, but I couldn't with the cars behind me (one way street, remember). So I drive through it, my engine starts smoking & making wierd sounds, but I make it through ok. I drive a little further & realize there is more water ahead & it's deeper. So I turn off that street head back to Calhoun where all the traffic was. I'm right where I originally turned off the first time, only it's 15 minutes later. I move about a 1/2 block in the next 20 minutes. While I'm moving down that 1/2 block, the nice man on the radio tells me that half of the roads in downtown are closed due to flooding (would have been nice if he had told me that about 30 minutes earlier). So I give up, call John & cancel.

I finally get off of Calhoun & head to the Harris Teeter downtown on East Bay, where I defeatedly bought a $3 Lean Cuisine (at least it was cheap!!). It's a about 1:15 now & I'm famished.

I drive through some more flood waters in our parking lot, walk through flood waters in my heels (I dressed up for my client lunch that was cancelled), and head straight to the kitchen to heat up my frozen meal. I head back to my desk with my nasty frozen meal and guess what is on my desk? MY 1/2 SALAD! Yep, the restraurant forgot to cancel my order.

So now I have a salad and a lean cuisine.