Sour 'bout mah lunch hour

Lunch. This is a very sacred thing to me. I don't think some of my co-workers understand this concept, especially when I'm bringing it from home. Trying to go from the office kitchen to my desk with my lunch in hand is seriously a monumental feat, like trying to walk through a minefield without setting any off. Because it never fails. As soon as I sit down at my desk with my lunch, I wait. It could be something as complex as leftovers from our Sunday roast or something as simple as a sandwich, but sure enough:

"What smells so good?"

Seriously? I should just get on a microphone and broadcast to the office what I'm having. It would save me a lot of trouble.

May I have your attention please? Today, I will be having a roast beef sandwich. That's right - a roast beef sandwich! So, please feel free to stop by and marvel at the modern miracle that is the roast beef sandwich!

Because it's not enough to just answer the question. On most occasions, the next question after that will be:

"Did you make it yourself?"

And there's no way around this one. It depends on the person asking. Scenario A is I will then have to list the ingredients used to prepare said roast beef sandwich, including the type of mayonnaise and how many grams of salt and pepper were allotted to the preparation and assembling of this dish. Scenario B is that I will have to then listen to the other person list the nuances of their roast beef sandwich preparation, how it's different than mine, and why they're forever bonded to their sister's classmate from the 2nd grade because their roast beef sandwich basically saved this person's life.

I kid you not.

And this kind of inspection of my food is why I've basically stopped eating hard-boiled eggs in the office. Because every time I did, there's this one person...

"I SMELL A HARD-BOILED EGG! WHO'S EATING A HARD-BOILED EGG?"

I'm sorry, but it's generally not difficult to deduce what a hard-boiled egg smells like. It smells like a hard-boiled egg. And personally, that's something I don't really want announced to the office, n'est ce pas?

I just want to eat my hard-boiled egg in peace, but I can't. Thus my personal hard-boiled egg embargo at work.

I don't do this to anyone else, but as far as I can remember this always happened to me. I come from a long history of being the owner of desirable lunches. At my first job, this one girl would always come over with her eyes roving all over my food, making me feel like she had been visually consumed before I could even set my teeth in it. Every. Day. Followed by: "What you got?"

Seriously? This became a running joke in my family. And because it was my first job and I was so naive, I even on occasion - embarassingly enough - brought a duplicate lunch to shut her up. It didn't work.

So now, it's over ten years later, and this shit is still happening to me. I will be sitting there, practically climbing the walls from hunger while my co-workers ooh and ahh over my lunch. Turning my back to everything doesn't help. Sticking Post-Its announcing that I'm eating above my head doesn't faze them. And I'm too much of a wimp to just tell them to Back Away From The Lunch and leave me alone.

So it may be too late for me and I've resigned myself to putting up with it, but you don't have to. Learn from this, folks. Don't be a Lunchtime Sucka.