My Lunch Date

It’s Rob. I’ll be here for a few days while Sharon's off on a cruise. The pressure of not working all day while the kids are in school full-time was getting to her so she deserved a break. In the meantime, I’ll be recording a few of my observations about our family in her absence.

November 14th, 2009

A few weeks ago Sharon sent me this text: Some of the parents are showing up at school today to have lunch with their kids. I was about to write back have fun!! when I received another text that said: I can’t make it but Ella really wants you to come. I had a pretty light morning so I said I could go. . .


When I got to the school I was the only parent there but Ella seemed excited to see me.  She asked me to come sit with her friends and told me to try and say something funny. The kids were a great audience and I was having an awesome time. When it was over, I realized I had been talking so much I hadn’t even had a chance to eat.

As I was heading back towards the subway station I saw a 7-11 and decided to grab a Slurpee and some nachos. I piled everything on the nachos, including chili sauce, that cheese stuff and a few jalapenos. I was walking out of the store when I suddenly became embarrassed and ashamed of my lunch. I didn’t want anyone I knew from the neighborhood to see me eating all this crap, so I went and hid out in the courtyard of a nearby housing project. I was totally happy as I ate my nachos and Slurpee until I noticed 3 big ass guys approaching me. Maybe they didn’t want me hanging out in their courtyard?

I was pretty nervous as they got closer to me and the guy in the middle (let's call him Brian) said, “What the F$#% are you doing here?” By this time the other guys had completely surrounded me. I said, “I’m just drinking this Slurpee”. Then Frank (not his actual name) said, “Cool man I love Slurpees”. We started talking about different Slurpee flavors and I asked them if they wanted to go back to 7-11 with me and get their own Slurpees. My treat.

They were all down for the trip so we went to the store together. I got another one because I didn’t want to seem anti-social. We were getting along great and they invited me back to the courtyard. We all hung out on the steps of their housing development drinking our Slurpees and talking about basketball.

My job requires me to go to lunch meetings about 3 times a week but I can honestly say it was the best lunch meeting I’ve had in months. Blogger Challenge: Go lunch with someone new this week!