One thing I find quite fascinating: Americans -at least the ones surrounding me- are obsessed with lunch. It’s not breakfast, dinner or any other kind of snack time, it’s lunch! While I can go all day without food (and then raid the refrigerator at night time) I get the impression that if there were a law that made lunch illegal, many Americans would quickly fade away. Probably the most effective way to wage a war against the USA is to cut off their lunch supply. The rest should be a piece of cake.

I’m not sure if most Americans can remember where they were and what they did when Britney Spears had her first baby, but I bet you a dollar they know exactly what they had for lunch that day.

As a matter of fact, lunch is without a doubt the most used word in the English language. The words “the” or “and” don’t even come close. Lunch is so important, people don’t just talk about it while they are having it. They talk about it …always! It has practically become an art to converse about it. If you want to have a good chat with an American, ask him what he had for lunch. He will tell you in great detail what he had, where he had it, why he had it, how he had it, what he was experiencing while he had it and how much he paid for the meal of the day. His eyes will get teary and chances are high he’ll put you in his will for your kind companionship. If it’s not lunch time yet but you need to make a good impression, ask him what he had for lunch the day before and you’ll still be included in his will.

No matter what you have for lunch, people want to know about it. And they like to compliment you on your good choices. Waiters are the worst. Whatever you order, it’s always a good choice. I tested it at IHOP the other day. I ordered a Super Supreme Pizza with extra cheese.

“Good choice!” the waiter replied. “But we don’t serve pizza.”

“Darn it! Just bring me the extra cheese then.”

“Good choice!”

I’ve made most of my observations at work, of course. That’s where I’m usually at when lunch time comes around. The work place can be a dangerous environment. I’m not talking about dangerous machinery or such, I’m talking about my co-workers. There’s a certain hostility towards people who don’t eat anything during lunch break. I used to just get me a cup of coffee, sit outside and smoke a couple of cigarettes. Not for long though, because I would get those weird looks from my co-workers, like I was an illegal immigrant or something.

Actually, the interrogation would start in the mornings:

“What’s for lunch?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t bring lunch?”

“No.”

“Cool! So where are you gonna go for lunch?”

“Nowhere.”

“I see. Do you need to lay down for a while?”

I have learned to come to work with a backpack. I tell phenomenal stories about its tasty content and when lunch time comes around I just hide behind the dumpster for thirty minutes, smoking my cigarettes. Upon my return, I push out my belly, moaning: “That was sooo good!” When lunch time is finally over, that’s where the real problems start. Because everybody is walking around slightly leaning towards starboard and now they want to know what made everybody else feel so miserable. So I have to lie again:

“Man, that meatloaf is killing me! Good lunch, though. I‘d do it again any time!”

Every now and then I walk into a typical American lunch trap:

“Would you pay fifty bucks for a seafood buffet?”

“Hell no!”

“Exactly! The one at the Rio Hotel is only 27.95. Let’s go!”

It bugs me when I get tricked into going places. But I have to admit that life at work is always much easier afterwards. People surround you and ask questions about the seafood. Was it good? Was the price ok? How big were the crab legs? Were there people present who could remember their lunch the day Britney Spears’ child was born? It’s some kind of bonding, I guess.

I can’t wait for my Little Rib to come back home. She makes the most delicious sandwiches and she puts them in my lunch box aside with some spicy radishes and a few chunks of cheese. I rarely ever get to eat it because I show it to my co-workers just to prove that I appeared to work with some kind of lunch. They inspect it and keep picking at it till it’s gone. It’s ok, but I hate them all for eating my cheese!

This entry was posted by Michael Meyn on Saturday, June 10th, 2006 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Meyn's World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or a trackback from your own site.