The United Church of Pescetarians

Spreadsheet Icarus

My previous blog entry has a bland story about a spreadsheet. To recap, I regale readers with a story of me creating a spreadsheet for a work lunch and everyone thinking it was awesome.

Well, the day of the lunch showed up and I sent around the menu again.

“Hey everyone! Put in your orders, because it’s Team Lunch Today!” said my email, dripping with my smug exultation of my own spreadsheet genius.

About 5 minutes later, I get another email:

“Hey everyone, the menu for the restaurant changed. Here’s the update.”

I immediately went online and checked and, sure enough, the menu had changed in the week since I originally sent out the email. This is weird.

Once everyone has entered a meal in the spreadsheet, I had to walk around the room and ask 6 people to update their orders because what they had put in was no longer available.

After this is completed I got our team card and went into an office to order.

“Hello, the number you are trying to reach is disconnected.”

My jaw just kind of hangs there. WTF? What am I supposed to do? If you don’t know me, when I get nervous, I just start to sweat. It’s what I do.

So I’m starting to sweat and run out to my desk and grab my computer. I Google the number again and find that I had everything correct. My other option is to go through Grubhub, which has another number listed for the restaurant. The sweat starts to recede as I dial the number and am connected.

“Thank you for calling Grubhub. Hold one moment.”

Waiting…

“Hello, the number you are trying to reach is disconnected.”

At this point sweating begins double time. I look across the table in shock (I perform very well under pressure.) and whisper at Cindy.

“Hey… Uh… The restaurant doesn’t exist.”

Cindy kind of looks at me. “What?”

I quickly turn away and start typing into Grubhub. There is an order online option, so I click one of the meals that was ordered.

6.95 meal + 89 delivery fee = 97.95

I could have basically gotten out of a pool at this point. There was so much sweat.  Almost 100 bucks for one meal? What?

“Cindy,” I say again, “it doesn’t work… What should I do?”

“Order some place else,” she said.

So I’m panicking, which I believe Cindy is suddenly aware of, and she walks over to me.

“Let’s just order like Mediterranean Grill. It’s the same kind of food.”

“Yeah..uhh…yeah…”

I get online and go through the menu. Rather than having normal food, the only thing you can order online are these bowls.

“How should I handle this?” I ask Cindy.

“Just take your computer around and take orders.”

So I open up my browser and go to my first coworker.

“Hey, Steve. Want to pick an item? The other place was closed.”

Steve looks at the menu. “I want a plate. I don’t want a bowl.”

“Bowls are all they have.”

“I want a plate.”

Remember, I’ve only been working at this place like 3 weeks, so I don’t really want to seem like I’m in charge or anything, so I’m just like,  “Bowls are all they have.”

Steve proceeds to click out of the menu and look for a plate.

At this point, the whole debacle has taken me about 45 minutes.

Steve can’t find the platter, because they only serve bowls, so he gives the computer back and says, “No, I don’t want anything.”

“Uhhh…. Okay…”

This continued through the rest of the 14 orders that I had to take. Surprisingly there are a lot of nuances with bowls and lots of people liked to ask questions to me, the guy with the computer.

“Well, do they put hot sauce on the side?”

“Umm… I don’t know.”

“Because I want hot sauce, but I want it on the side.”

“Uhhhh….”

“Can you ask them to put it on the side?”

“It’s…all electronic.”

“I want it on the side.”

By the time I had all the orders, I kind of wanted to kill myself. Everyone was riled up and the complaints about the menu had turned into complaints about being hungry.

The order was processed, the food turned out great, my sweat dried, and everyone was sitting down and eating. All animosity had left as everyone ate delicious Mediterranean Food.

“Nice work, Tedd!”

“Thanks for the work, buddy!”

Just as I shall never ride Megabus, I hope to never order Team Lunch again. I have also been humbled by the Spreadsheet. I now know that flying to close to the sun just gets you covered in hot sauce and ill will.

The United Church of Pescetarians

One time my friend, Tristan, and I were out. We had been drinking on a weeknight and were interested in pizza. Tristan is the oldest in his family and I am the youngest. Also, in size, Tristan is 6’6”, so in his family and in height, he’s kind of like the big brother in our friendship. We’ve pretty much been best friends since the second time we met. This also means that sometimes Tristan can be a little condescending to me, the little brother.

We were getting pizza and Tristan says, “Oh, I want meat on my pizza, but I can’t because of my diet…” (I would hope this line of dialogue alone would indicate Tristan’s sexual orientation.)

“Why not?” I asked

“Well, I’m actually a pescetarian. You probably don’t know what that is.”

“I know what it is –”

“It means I only eat fish. That’s what it means.”

“I know I –”

“I only eat fish. It’s like kind of a new thing I’m trying – a new diet.”

I’m not like the smartest guy in the world, but I also know enough that if you put pesca- in front of something it means it’s fish-related, unlike putting Presb- in front of something, which means that you like Jesus and may be from Scotland.

Once we had sobered up and I recounted this story, Tristan thought it was hysterical, too. He was totally acting like the goth girl in the back of the room in high school, who is like, “I’m vegan. I couldn’t possible eat anything from the body of a precious animal.” Then three weeks later she is on a carnivore diet because she’s dating a guy in a band called MEAT.

Well, the other weekend I was visiting my friend at IU in Bloomington, IN. Bloomington is this weird, wonderful nexus of farm folks, frat brothers, and super liberal hippies. Everyone lives together in peace in harmony. At the center of this ecosystem is the beautiful IU campus with its castle-like architecture and leaves that seem to be perpetually in that perfect, fall color schema.

My friend, Marlene, who I was visiting, had just got a new roommate, Troy. Troy is 23 and an absolutely beautiful homosexual. He is studying some sort of environmental policy and is brand new to Bloomington, so he hasn’t yet made enough friends to have better things to do than hang out with Marlene, me, and my other friend, Alice.

Our last morning in town we went to brunch, and Alice, Marlene, and I, being good Midwesterners, ordered what might as well have been called The Fatty Fatty Fat Fat breakfast. It had eggs, bacon, and two giant pancakes. Troy ordered something with crab(?) in it. Is that a food?

So we were discussing food and Troy mentioned that there are a lot of options for vegetarians in Bloomington, and it being the Frat-Liberal-Country-Nexus that it is, I really believed it. This kind of turned into the talk where everyone says that they, “don’t mind vegetarians, but…oh brother, vegans!”

This reminded me of Tristan and his pescetarianism. So, I tell the story and say something like, “Yeah, my friend Tristan can be really pretentious sometimes and so he… [story]”

Marlene kind of looks at me like, “You stupid moron. We’re eating with an attractive homosexual, what do you think you’re doing?”

I had a split of second to think, “Blaaarrrggghhhh…” before Troy is like, “Oh. I’m a pescetarian.”

Luckily for all of us, we’re so much older than Troy, he was obligated to chalk it up to my old-tymey ignorance, rather than any animosity toward pescetarianism in general.

The rest of brunch continued and I ate most of my Fatty Fatty Fat Fat breakfast. I devoured my bacon.

And I don’t care what anyone thinks.