All You Can Eat

My productivity is like Spider-Man after being caught in bed with J. Jonah Jameson's dead wife.

It's out the window.

***

There are several problems with that as an opening salvo. Long, clumsily constructed sentence? Yes. Reference to obscure character's even more obscure wife? Yes.

Not very funny joke in the first place?

Yes. I mean, no. I mean... what was the question?

But the point (laboured and incoherent though it may be) remains: I have been unproductive. I haven't written a proper blog since for ages.

And I was doing so well in June!

I feel like an alcoholic who has accidentally murdered someone in a brewery. It's a step back.

But never mind. I can improve myself. I've always believed that willpower is rewarded. Especially if you have telekinetic powers.

I'm not saying I do have telekinetic powers. But look at your mug. Twisted 60° left? Who could have done that? There's no-one else in the room.

WILLPOWER.

***

Yesterday I was really embarrassed.

And everyone likes a story of embarrassment.

I think it was probably unwarranted. But I blushed. I think I blushed. I didn't have it verified by a mirror or outside human. But I reckon I blushed.

That's why I grew a beard. To cut down on potential blush area.

It was lunchtime, and I was in the canteen at work. I was serving myself some food.

I have a fairly rigid lunch plan, based on taste, cost, availability, pescetarianism and Pagan Superstition.

MONDAY: Salad bar salad, pot of tuna mayonnaise

TUESDAY: Roast potatoes and vegetables (usually carrots and cabbage), pot of tuna mayonnaise

WEDNESDAY: My day off, so ICING SUGAR AND VALIUM

THURSDAY: Salad bar salad, pot of tuna mayonnaise

FRIDAY: Chips, carrots, mushy peas, pot of tuna mayonnaise (if the peas are unmushed, I am nonplussed)

WEEKEND: Humble pie, pot of tuna mayonnaise

That's it. There are exceptions. Sometimes fate takes a hand and will force my hand (possibly to replace the hand it has taken). But that's a general rule of mealthumb.

Yesterday was Tuesday. So I was going to have roast potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and a pot of tuna mayonnaise.

I dished out some potatoes. I dished out some carrots. I dished out some cabbage.

It was only when the cabbage hit the plate that I realised I'd served myself a MOUNTAIN of food. The portions were enormous. It barely fit on the plate. This meal could have fed Africa. I looked like I was carrying a leafy volcano.

Now, my portion sizes are usually quite big. I'm not Johnny Frugal. But even by my standards, this was embarrassing.

How had I done it? How did I not realise when I was shovelling on potatoes and carrots that I was all out of scale? I can only put it down to a terrible brain injury.

The last cabbage leaves were still settling when I noticed. But what could I do? You can't start unloading food back into the serving bowls. People don't want food that has already touched another man's plate.

So I was stuck with it.

I forewent my pot of tuna mayonnaise. That would have been ridiculous.

I sheepishly went to pay for my meal, trying to apologise with my eyes (without making eye contact).

The nice woman at the check-out apologised, but said she had to charge me extra for all the food.

OF COURSE SHE DID!

THAT'S THE LEAST I DESERVED!

I HAD ALMOST EMPTIED THE CANTEEN OF EDIBLE WARES!

I wanted to make a remark. But what can you say?

"Sorry. I didn't mean to. My quantity judgement faculties must have been on the blink. Ha. Ahaha."

I said nothing. I was embarrassed.

Needless to say, I couldn't eat it all. Of course I couldn't. Godzilla couldn't.

I felt quite the fool.

Now, I'm not sure why I was so embarrassed there. It's not the worst thing can happen to me. They didn't catch me putting my dick in the soup.

(I mean, I didn't put my dick in the soup. But if I had done, and they'd caught me, it would have been embarrassing)

I think my embarrassment threshold has gone down as I've got older. Or up. Whichever one is better.

As a teenager, I was embarrassed by everything: my clothes, my face, my atoms. But recently I have mellowed.

I didn't even feel awful when I was introduced to two important work people from a foreign office, and they caught me watching a Beyoncé video. Now that should have been embarrassing. But I brushed it off. (I said brushed)

(In my defence, I don't even like Beyoncé. I was only watching it because a colleague has said that one of her sexy dancers was a transvestite. It was research.)

But for some reason, the overburdened plate made me feel like I was 13 again, cringing at my own idiocy.

I hope it was just an isolated incident. To make sure nothing like that happens again, I'm going to start carrying cabbage scales to lunch and will stop putting my (hypothetical) dick in the (genuinely scalding) soup.