Unattended Sandwiches

At Café Gypsy, I used to serve sandwiches to customers, eating their leftovers after clearing the table if I deemed the food untouched—or at least sanitarily touched.

Now, making headway in my life and career, I’m a secretary at Badvertiser… where I serve sandwiches to clients at important meetings. And I eat their leftovers too.

There are usually leftovers at these meetings because people are trying to be polite, never taking seconds of their delicious sandwiches that I ordered: smoked turkey BLTs, grilled chicken and avocado melts, roast beef on rye... I’m on both set-up and clean-up duty, so I get the first go at the spoils after the big boys have picked everything over and had their fill.

Early on in the meeting today, there is half a sandwich on the supply counter, with no apparent owner. It seems a bit strange to me, as the meeting is still going and people are still eating; usually, the nice clients don’t offer to help me clear the conference table until the end. So, I sit on my hands, my Pavlovian drool response in high-gear. I resist, waiting out the circumstance of this unattended sandwich.

Ten minutes elapse, and still, there is an unattended sandwich. Well, I conclude, it must be someone trying to clean up early. The supply counter is next to my desk, so the client probably thought he was being helpful by bringing it closer to me.

I claim the sandwich as my own, and begin eating it.

With my mouth full of delicious white-collar sandwich, I am suddenly accosted by Lenny. “Hey McQ, have you seen my sandwich?”

I then realize I’m eating a sandwich that Lenny had set aside for himself. Quickly and slyly, I slide an office memo print-out over the incriminating sandwich. I scoot it alongside the wall of my cubicle.

I’m spitting out seeds of multi-grain as I answer him. “No. What sandwich?”

“It was right… I don’t know, I put it here on the supply counter.”

“I don’t know, if you left it there, maybe someone thought it was trash from a client? There’s still plenty left in the conference room, though.” I'm trying not to chew the strip of bacon in my mouth, packing it to the side of my cheek like a hamster.

Lenny stops asking me questions, not suspecting me in the least. He leaves my desk in a huff and goes to retrieve another sandwich.

There’s a moral to this story: when around McQ, never leave a sandwich unattended.

Take my word for it, because you don’t want to have to learn it the hard way. Lenny had to learn it the hard way.