Am I a thief if I am not sure if it is theft?

At the beginning of every week I throw enough lunches in my bag to sustain my lunching needs for the week.

This week when I left for work I left under different conditions.

1. It was Walker's birthday.

2. I was meeting a co-worker at the Ogden Front-runner station at 7:00, ride the train to Woods Cross and then take his commuter car to work.

When I left the house I forgot several important items. My badge - no entering restricted areas of the hangar. My Cell phone - what if I miss the train, delayed or need to contact Joe and let him know I am late? I'm hosed! My ipod - no life sustaining, sanity keeping music and podcasts. I'm hosed again! No lunch! Triple hosed! This was promising to be a long day.

Luckily I did not need my badge for anything that day, no delays or problems getting to the train station and I managed OK without listening to anything. Disaster diverted! Phew!

However, around lunch I started to get mighty powerful hungry. Sometimes I get taken out to lunch for business related occasions. On these days, my lunches go uneaten. I thought I would go check the freezer in the break room to see if I had any in there. Right in front, in the middle of the freezer there sate a Marie Calendars Chicken dinner. I kind of, sort of almost remember buying one and I sort of remembering bringing it to work the week before, but I did not go out to lunch the week before and why was it sitting in the middle of the fridge like it had just been placed there that day?

I thought about taking it and heating it up. But then an uncomfortable scenario popped into my head where I was pulling the meal out of the microwave just as someone was sticking their head in the freezer, retracting their head slowly with a quizical look while commenting "Hey! Where did my lunch go?" There would be that moment of silence, the look of disgust in their eyes, the look of shame in mine as we both stared down at the steaming plate of chicken and potatoes. I quickly discarded the notion and returned to my desk.

I tried to concentrate on work, but my stomach began to gurgle. I tried to tell myself I could go without lunch today. That is when my stomach seized control of my legs and walked myself to the fridge, commanded my arms to retrieve the meal and then made me go stick it in the microwave. I had to heat it for three minutes, open the plastic, stir the potatoes, put the gravy packet in and heat for an additional 3 minutes. The timer on the clock seemed to go so slow that I could count to 100 between each tick of the second timer. At one point it started messing around with me and actually reversed time and started adding time back on. I glared at the clock and nervously tapped my toe and stole nervous glances at the door. At any time now someone is going to stroll through rubbing their hands saying "AGH! Rough day at work today! It's gonna make that Chicken dinner I have been saving ALL month, taste even better! Today is my birthday! and I told my wife that's all I wanted! Yep! Chicken dinner! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!!! YUM!" and then there would be the moment of dread when they silently stood in front of the freezer staring at the fridgid void in unbelief.

Finally the meal finished heating. I scampered back to my desk like a monkey who had snatched a banana from a three year old. I hovered over it and gobbled it down as if I was nearly famished to death, like it was the only meal I had eaten in a week and a half. After I had cleaned the plate I tossed everything in the garbage to remove any obvious clues. I sat at my desk quietly listening for an enraged coworker to come storming out of the break room asking who ate their lunch. It never happened.

When I got home I found the Marie Callendar's lunch that I had bought was not in the freezer at home. It was in fact my lunch and I had just pointlessly snarfed down my own lunch and given myself a stomach ache from eating so fast and thinking about someone quietly starving in their cubicle at my expense. Isn't senility fun?!?