Holding the Snake

My exceptional manager strikes again. Last week, he invited me to the departmental GluttonyFest, otherwise known as the annual outing.

At first I thought this was the departmental holiday party, and I wasn’t sure whether to applaud his efficiency or guffaw his gaffe. After all, it’s November 6, with forty two days of shopping days remaining until Christmas, and almost 3 weeks until we kill all the turkeys and give thanks for their brave sacrifice. On the other hand, we’re less than 2 weeks removed from Halloween’s Blood Sugar Free-For-All. Maybe this guy is a huge Roseanne fan from way back (or a pagan) and considers Oct 31 to be the real holiday. What I finally decided was that he’s a finance guy at his core, and budgets come due in December. There’s no time to Fest, as it were, with spreadsheets crawling out of the In Box, and he becomes the office equivalent of an Old Testament tax collector.

As it turns out, this is simply an annual outing, a trip to the department’s Mecca, Frank B’s. I like invitations, and I like being included in the employee things, so I accepted. It’s a restaurant in a grocery store, after all. The salad is likely to be a lonely tomato perched atop some untorn clump of greenery, but I’m okay with that. I can drink soda, and I can swallow coffee, and it’s a party.

Let’s go!

It turns out that Frank B’s is not a restaurant so much as it’s a Refueling Station for People Who Labor All Day. The buffet comes fully loaded with all things potato and greased meat, wrapped in pasta and covered in a nondescript sauce. I had never been there, so I asked one of the regulars about the salad bar. The guy actually snorted at me. “This is a food buffet. You can’t get vegetables there.”

So vegetables aren’t food, and potatoes aren’t vegetables. Okay, then.

I’m screwed, because while WW’s plan does allow for this kind of food terrorism, my personal diet plan does not. Actually, I’m not sure that WW really does have room for a place like Frank B’s buffet, since I’m pretty sure “lean meat” at this place is less a description than a serving suggestion, e.g. “lean meat against potatoes, and pour gravy over both.”

Panicked and PMSing, I talk this over with my WW buddy, where talk means ‘screaming in frustration over stupid men making stupid choices for stupid holiday parties that aren’t even on a HOLIDAY’. Lucky for me, my WW buddy is not only understanding and helpful, he is deaf. Well, he is now. He offers that I should eat my regular lunch before arriving, sit with my team, and drink only diet soda or coffee. I can still go, and I don’t have to compromise either my team-playerism or my diet.

Well, of course I forgot to stock my backpack with yogurt, and of course I got too busy to race out before it was time to head to Captain Obesity’s. When the time came for lunch, I drove alone, chanting, “Coffee is my friend and Frank B. is my enemy.” As I walked in, I saw the buffet table, a steaming snake of silver trays and yellowed lights. I don’t even see a soda dispenser. I do a quick-scan of the grocery aisles, but everything is labeled in Cyrillic, and everyone who can translate is busy rolling up their sleeves and tucking their ties into their shirts. That's when it occured to me that I would likely have to eat my napkin.

The Green Fairy smiles down on me, however, as there is not only a salad bar, but a pretty good one. They have at least 6 non-fried items, and there’s even fruit at the end. I build my lunch, careful to keep my back to the Snake, even though it’s grown hands and is rubbing them all over my shapeless bottom, looking for a place to drop dumplings. I race back to my table, skipping the salad dressing just in case there’s something in the poppy seed designed to make me crave sausage rolls, and sit down.

I’m first back to the table, of course, since it takes far less time to dump lettuce than it does to skewer polish hamburgers or strawberry pierogi. People and plates arrive, and the snake’s tendrils curl up my nose and slither down my throat. I swallow some coffee. It's scalding, and I'm grateful. If my throat’s blistered, then it won’t matter what follows.

My salad is surprisingly good. I eat it in small bites, so I’m not sitting around and drooling over everyone else’s plates. Eventually, though, the allure dissipates and I lift my head and look around. Just as I suspected, everything is golden brown and swimming in fish gravy. Heads hunch over plates and fork scrapes accompany bread sops and lip smacks. Only when someone comes up for soda or air do I make any eye contact. I recognize most of the food, and I know that I've eaten much of it, and....I don't want it.

The only thing that squicked me was the hot dogs rolled in croissants. They've always looked vaguely pornographic to me, with that rounded pink head poking out of the roll, but here, they positively glisten with oil. The dog gleams, the roll bubbles, and everything is stretched and bursting at its edges. I don't need to see anyone open wide and bite down on that, let alone a whole table of men who are already glassy-eyed from kishka in natural casing. For those not in the know, that is blood sausage stuffed into intestines. Apologies to those with plans to eat in the next 24 hours.

Since most of the team is young, everyone makes 2 trips to the buffet and then a final journey to the dessert table. Cannoli crunches in my ear, and the guy sitting next to me nabs a slice of cheesecake that is roughly the size of my first apartment. There’s no gravy, but everything is dusted with powdered sugar. I’m the only one not groaning when we get up to leave.

I made it. I cleared the Gauntlet and while I'm wobbly, I'm feeling decidedly more like a noodle than a sausage. I’m limp from the experience, but there’s not a speck of gravy on me, and I am not at all stuffed. How about that.

194.0 pounds today, down 57.0 and wearing my size 12 no-stretch jeans to work. Can’t breath and don’t care.

A the S(nake Charmer)