Busted at the buffet!

As anyone who knows me is well aware, I don't cook. It's just something I was never really good at - or interested in - doing. Oh sure, I can boil pasta with the best of them, and I'm a self-proclaimed mac-n-cheese gourmet, but mostly I eat out. Not the best thing for a broke person with a weight problem, but whatever. I'm lazy.

So one day last week I got hungry around dinnertime, and I started thinking of what I wanted to eat. I was sick of pizza and Mighty Taco, and not at all in the mood for fast food, in fact. I decided just to get in my car and drive around until something struck my fancy. As I drove, I passed two grocery stores and thought about just breaking down and buying some actual groceries to cook myself something cheap and nutritious. That thought passed quickly, however, and I kept driving. I thought about going for Indian food, but again - not in the mood. I was hungry, and my stomach was screaming at me to feed it like Audrey II to Seymour Krelborn. But I just couldn't figure out what I wanted. All sorts of stuff sounded alternately good and awful, and then finally it came to me. The answer to my dilemma - the buffet.

Now, buffets depress me. Even the really swank casino buffets bum me out. Something about all that food and all those people shoveling it into their fat faces (myself included) just really makes me cringe at the level of gluttony. I also have this really weird hangup about eating in front of people (which is why I eat out alone most of the time), and an almost paralyzing fear of tripping and dropping my plate. Alas I went, by myself, and as I usually do, I started with a salad. No sooner had I speared the first leaf of romaine with my fork and brought it up to my gaping maw when I heard a familiar voice, "Hey, what's this lady doing here all by herself at the buffet?"

Good God. It was my coworker. I should have known, given the fact that I have this uncanny knack for running into people I know no matter where I go, that the odds were with me that I would see someone I knew. I'd actually had a fleeting thought to turn around on my way there, because something in my gut told me this would happen, but my hunger pangs were stronger, so I forged ahead. And look what happened. I was mortified.

So as I sat there stuffing my face, I tried to think of all sorts of clever ways to hide what was on my plate, or create diversions so that this coworker and her family would not see how many trips I made (I think it was three...four if you count the cup of horrid coffee). Mostly I prayed that she wouldn't go to work that night and announce to everyone that she'd seen me there. Because they wouldn't understand.

Note to self: next time, just go to the fucking grocery store.