Food for Thought

Once in a while

Today was one of those days where I wanted to have lunch alone. My colleagues told me they were all going for fish head curry (again), but I told them I had a lunch appointment. They then started whistling and poking me in the arm, thinking that I was going to lunch with some hot chick, when in fact my lunch appointment was with myself.

Why lunch alone?

Well, for starters, I wasn’t in the mood for talking. Nor was I in the mood to listen to the latest office gossips. All I wanted to do at exactly 1pm today was to drive off to McDonalds and munch on six pieces of crunchy nuggets, one large iced Coke minus the salty fries. And that was exactly what I did.

“Excuse me.” I looked up and saw this senior man in an immaculate dark suit by my table. “Are these seats taken?”

There were obviously three empty seats, so I shook my head no.

“You don’t mind?”

Not at all, I said.

He sat down, I smiled, and then I munch munch munch and stare stare stare out the window. So peaceful, I thought.

“You work around these parts?”

I turned my head, and apparently the stranger was talking to me. Oh no, I said. My office is (bleep). I just came here for lunch.

“Oh that’s far,” he said.

I know, I said. At that moment, I was hoping that the guy would smell from my short responses that I was actually in NO MOOD to chit chat. But the guy did not get it and continued talking.

He told me that he was in the security business. He told me that his partners are from Singapore, and they are “financially-smart but have poor people skills”. He told me that he was looking forward to play golf in Indonesia. He told me his opinions about the Israel-Lebanon situation. And I listened, because at that point, I was actually interested.

“Where are your colleagues?” he suddenly asked me.

Oh they wanted local, but I wanted fast food, I said, which was partially the truth. Where are yours?

“Well,” he said, “I am the boss and apparently, I have been eating lunches alone.”

Oh.

“Just to let you know that when you do climb the corporate ladder, it does get lonely sometimes.”

He later gave a huge sigh as if a huge burden was lifted from him.

At the moment, I realized the difference between him and I was that I wanted to have lunch alone, while he did not. But the similar thing about us was that we were both enjoying what McD’s got to offer, as well as the conversation were having over lunch today.