Reachable Rapture
At roughly 11:53 this morning, I was struck with a ravenous, inescapable and painfully immediate desire to eat. My pupils dilated, my palms began to sweat, and I became strangely conscious of how various objects on my desk might taste, regardless of their edibility. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and mustered all of the self control at my disposal.
It was ok. I could walk to lunch.
Those who have been around me for more than a few hours know that I enjoy eating. It doesn’t really matter WHAT I eat, just that I need to; frequently. I always say a packed stomach is a happy stomach, no matter what you’ve packed. For example, just yesterday I lunched on three grilled cheese sandwiches, four glasses of chocolate milk, a bowl full of ice cream and a half wedge of Dubliner cheese. Not the most delicious meal in the world, but it did the trick. I wasn’t having any food related panic attacks for at least three hours.
This is why working at shotgun is such a treat.
Having grown up in the Middle-of-Nowhere, NH I can’t tell you how nice it is to work right next door to the center of Middleboro. At any given moment, you are within walking distance of at least 5 dining options and a short drive from perhaps a half dozen more. That one stop light - which is central to all the exciting bits of Middleboro - seems downright urban some days. There’s the greasy pizza place, the soggy BLT place, the unfriendly greek place, the sorta-kinda dunkin donuts place and last but not least, the gas station (which serves a surprisingly wide variety of cokes and candybars). Each one I have come to love for different reasons over the past nine months; some for the food, and some for the service.
As it turned out, this particular story had a happy ending. I calmly got up, walked down the street, and treated myself to three bagels and two iced coffees at the kinda-sorta dunkin donuts. Then I stopped by the soggy pizza place for a lunchtime slice, and finally got a salad from the unfriendly greek.
Middleboro, you’ve made my day.