The Great Buns Controversy (aka I'll just have a salad)

Today was our office Christmas luncheon and I was vastly unprepared. My group was supposed to bring deserts, and much like the day before, I had completely forgotten to obtain my obligatory contributional party-fare. Had I at least foresight if not rememberance, I would have acquired said item when I was at the grocery store just over twenty-four hours earlier obtaining last-minute party items for my children and their Christmas party. But instead, I again visited the land of last-minute party shopping.

Yes, yes, on to our story...


I look down at the clock in my car as I'm zipping from work to the grocery store. I'll be a little late, I thought, but I'm bringing a desert item, so it's not like IT has to be on time. Upon arrival at the grocery store, I head straight for the bakery and pick up some cupcakes. Path of least resistance, right?

So I'm thinking I'm home-free, just a few more minutes to get checked out and I'm zipping back to work, desert in hand, and hopefully not last in line for food.

But suddenly, on the way to the check-out counter, I see lead. Or, that's what we call her at the office. For her initials, PB, and their contiguous significance on the periodic table (yes, I know we're geeks, get over it). Ah-ha! A fellow ill-prepared soon-to-be party goer. And she has a cart full of buns.

Dinner rolls that is.

There's an empathy here, so I must investigate. I ask her what she is supposed to get and she says salad and rolls, only she's not certain what she will do about the salad at the last minute. She was going to get some salad items and find some place to cut it all up, but she didn't have a bowl. So I suggested getting one of those salad bags that are already prepared, and I was pretty sure they had bowls in this joint.

So, a salad-hunting we will go.

First, we find the bowls, where we have our choice of two, three, and four-quart varieties. She grabbed one of the smaller bowls, but I recommended (in retrospect, mistakingly) the larger bowl. Keep in mind at this point I was still thinking leafy salad with not much density... need lots of room.

Moments later we're at the vegetable area checking out the prepared salads, but they were not to her satisfaction, so we headed to the deli area, after some organizational bickering, where they have roast chicken, other meats, and... salads (potato, pasta, etc).

Not a bad plan we're thinking. But we still have this not-clean bowl dilema, not to mention the question of quantity.

So she selects a bean salad (if that's what it's called) and asks if they can use the bowl we have to put it in, once cleaned of course. They reply affirmatively, so we hand over the bowl. They were very kind to clean the bowl for us and load it up with salad. Lots of salad.

Ten (10) freakin' pounds worth of salad.


Yes, yes, many mistakes were made to this point, and they continued. Could we have asked them to put back some salad? Sure. Could we have gone back for the smaller bowl? Sure. Could we have gone with plan A (leafy salad)? Sure. But we were very short on time. At this point, we suspected folks had already started eating, we were that late, so we went with what we had and got checked out.

PB ended up with a whopping fifty dollar bill for her lunch contribution. The bowl was like eight bucks, and the salad was three buck per pound (!). Ouch.

So, with plenty of second thoughts I'm certain, we rushed back to the scene of the party only to be the last in line to get food because, as we feared, folks had already started eating.

But getting into the building, we chose the side-door, which was locked, instead of the front door. I could see through the window that people were right by the door, so I knocked. When someone answered they said (I think in jest) they would only let her in and not me, at which point I replied with today's controversial theme...

"But I have her buns"

Yes, that went badly, but that's what I get for offering to carry "the buns" and my cupcakes while she, "the girl", carried in the ten pound bowl of salad.

Don't give me that look. I never said this was going well.


Well, for the sake of my readers, we won't get into the events of the party. It was mostly uneventful (and by that I don't mean day-to-day uneventful, I just mean, with regard to a Christmas party atmosphere), and none of us want to re-live that part anyway, right? For me, all of the "fun" was before the party. "Holding her buns" and all that.

:)