Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Can't it just be lunch?

I bring my lunch to work most of the time. I could say I do it because it's healthier than the other options near my office, and that's true. But it's really because I'm cheap. Rather than blowing $50 a week on takeout for one meal a day, I go on a fabulous vacation somewhere warmer than here every single winter. I giggle when colleagues wonder how we can afford it as I watch them schlep off to the food court every day around noon.

But shit happens. Sometimes I fall behind in the evening and don't pack my lunch for the next day, or the morning is hectic and I forget my perfectly lovely lunch in the fridge at home as I dash out the door. And sometimes I just want to have something that I don't have the stuff to make at home, like a nice, crunchy salad on a Friday afternoon.

So when I'm having that vastly overpriced salad, I get annoyed when the box it came in is preaching at the other lunch containers in the area:
"This packaging is eco friendly". Oh, fuck off you pretentious little sticker! No it's not. Since I'm not going to reuse this packaging, it's really rather wasteful. While I'll dutifully put the container in the "plastic recycling" section of the garbage sorting station, I'll bet the waste management company contracted by this giant office building is chucking it all into one big truck that's headed for the exact same pile at the dump. I don't want to save the planet right now, I just want to eat my damn lunch.

This packaging is less eco friendly than the cheap yet biodegradable bag that held the hamburger the guy beside me is eating. But his lunch packaging doesn't feel the need to be all morally superior and shit, and it doesn't purport to be doing anything to change the world. Do you know WHY? Because it knows it's just the fucking bag his lunch came in. I paid an even higher markup for that stupid sticker and it topped my nice, crunchy salad on a Friday afternoon with a wedge of sanctimony. *sigh* Next time I'll just pack a sandwich.

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