I find cooking for the workplace to be one of the most difficult tasks of the week: more difficult than getting out of bed or dressing myself. It is even more difficult than showering without a shower curtain.

So how can one create a meal for the work day? Easy! Along with my ability to negotiate loan re-payment plans, I am something of a culinary genius when it comes to crafting the perfect meal for a busy work week.

Here are my tips:

Step 1: Press the snooze button on the alarm five to ten times. Given that the snooze lasts for five minutes, that means you could potentially over-sleep anywhere between 25 minutes to an hour late. You have sacrificed getting up early and making a meal in order to be well rested. Good for you.

Step 2: Get into work.

Step 3: Be overcome with hunger around noon. Stagger to the machines in the lunch room. These machines, which I suspect have become sentient, spin and display a veritable feast of simulated food. If one was hoping to eat a simulation of a beef burrito, then this machine would be the place to go

Step 4: Give machine a ridiculous amount of money.

Step 5: Take meal, in this case Hormel’s instant chili mac’ n’ cheese, and microwave it until it becomes a bubbling volcano of a lunch item.



Step 6: While mystery lunch meat with macaroni (no cheese to be found) is microwaving, go to other vending machine.

Step 7: Get Fritos®



Step 8: Take “food” back to desk. Open bag of Fritos® dump them on top of the chili.



Step 9: Eat with a spoon, like a shovel piling empty calories and sadness into your mouth.

Step 10: Give up on yourself.