I got shit canned from a job once. Painful memories there. I had to go back to work at an old factory job while figuring out what to do next. It wasn't a terrible thing for me really, since my outlook is pretty simple: When you are at peace with badness, nothing overwhlems you. The best part of this terrible thing? Lunch.My co-workers were mostly immigrants, dad's ditching child support, hustlers, drunks/drug addicts or some combination of one and the other. The finest collection of desperate losers you ever saw with a collected 180 years of experience - there was never a dull moment. We were located in Chinatown, and being even too broke for Chinese food, we bought up all these cool stainless steel lunchboxes. They were about $5-$10, depending how fancy you wanted to get. Myself, I splurged and went for the five tier, heavy gauge, fancy shit and it ran me $12. We would all bring in lunch together and share.
As meals go, there was a pretty interesting mix of cold pizza, curry and rice, chicken, ribs, mac + cheese, ramen, and all kinds of crazy vegetables. I used to go to the Arab market and score Pitas and hummus, dried apricots or raisins, olives, and goat cheese. We got tea from Chinatown real cheap. It was an extravagant daily affair and for some of the gentlemen it was the only meal they would get. We would set these Bento/Tiffin boxes on top of the big heater in the middle of the room and by lunch everything would be nice and hot. Somebody would sneak out early for smokes, an icy 30 pack, and scratch tickets. Cost to each of us? Under 5 bucks.
Our boss and his hot ass secretaries used to join us, even though they could get steak tips and mesclin salad from the yuppie place, just because it was like Thanksgiving everyday. I used to get stuff from the store to feed the others that I never even tried myself, like this knotted, herbed, cheese rope thing - just because it was cool looking. Besides, we were all friendly and there was unique bond of trust that gets forged from eating someone else's food.
The minimalist moral for this is simple. Bring a lunch. No Styrene box or plastic forks, no overeating, no food poisoning, no lines to wait in and - the price is right. For me the most important thing was the harmony of sitting down and eating with others. Even in a shitty, hot factory with people many would regard as outright evil, sitting and eating together is still awesome. I ate things I would have never tried and heard stories that might not have been told without that trust. No question - bringing a lunch makes you a better person.
