Pepperoni Continents and Green Pepper Oceans

From an unnamed production office for an undisclosed television show in an address-withheld building in LA where the elevators are shockingly slow...

Today I got this in my e-mail:

You guys... The snacks... were PIZZA!  Apparently there is a super green pizza place not too far away, and so we got to eat pizza.  For the Earth!  When I got there right at 4 p.m. because I love snacks our planet, I got to pick which of the many different kinds of pizza I wanted, and also there were sodas!  Because I am as good a person as I am employee, I even put my name on the list to learn about Green Committee meetings even though doing that was not required to get pizza (which they announced after I had already done both, but I'm sure my heart of gold/green would have led me to that choice anyway).  The place they ordered from is called Pizza Fusion, which is great to know about.  Now a good deed for the environment is only a Medium Four Cheese and Sun Dried Tomato pie away!  It just feels so good to give.

Attack of the Machines

From an unnamed production office for an undisclosed television show in an address-withheld building in LA where the elevators are shockingly slow...

An open letter to whomever makes the executive stocking decisions for the second floor vending machine:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I've been using vending machines for as long as I can remember.  And let me start off by saying that if you or any of your colleagues had anything to do with the ample supply of Funyuns at a certain Northern California middle school in the early nineties, I thank you.  Truly.  It was a dream.

Today, however, I am writing to you to enlist your help with a problem.  I'm sure that you are a faithful reader of this blog (who isn't, right Mom?) and so are familiar with how I feel about treats in the workplace: Simply, devoted.  Which means, I think, that you and I have something special in common: Neither of us could do our job if snacks didn't exist.  Isn't it cool, how connected we are?  You work a physically demanding and thankless job, carrying food up stairs on your very back through nothing but your body's sheer force, and I sit at a desk complaining and eating that stuff!

But here's the thing:  Where the eff have my Rice Crispy Treats been and who in their right mind would put Pop Tarts in B1 in the vending machine in their place?!  Oh- There are other alternatives?  You're right.  C7 is a Cinnabon Bar that I didn't even know existed until I started working here, and then when I read the fine print on the back that suggested that I put it in the microwave for seven seconds my head almost exploded from the gooey deliciousness, and that would be a totally viable replacement for the Rice Crispy Treats... If the Cinnabon Bars hadn't been replaced with yogurt covered granola bars!  This is not reasonable!  That's like swapping out someone's dear child or beloved pet and leaving in their place... A much much less cool child or pet!

So how can we meet in the middle on this?  Which is to say, how can you go back to doing this exactly as I want?  I'm being torn apart.  Today I had to bring a bag full of baked goods from home and put it on the table in the communal area just to be certain that I would be able to eat my fill of sweets while also collecting thank yous and compliments from my coworkers.  It has been a trying time.  Please- Hear my cry.

B1 Rice Crispy Treats, C7 Cinnabon Bars.

Thank you for your prompt attention,
K

Battle: Lunchbag

From an unnamed production office for an undisclosed television show in an address-withheld building in LA where the elevators are shockingly slow...

When I was a kid I used to watch "Cheers" with my mom because, as an elementary schooler, I really responded to bar humor.  I don't know.  Anyway, one of the standout moments of television hilarity from all of my youth (and I'm including "Mash", "Roseanne", AND "America's Funniest Home Videos") was in that bar where everyone knows your name.  Carla showed up to work late, and Becky (whom I certainly accepted, but never felt could replace Diane) taught Carla a little trick to help with punctuality: Set your watch half an hour ahead.  Carla- that sassy spitfire- seemed surprisingly on board.  From my memory- which is totally reliable 20 years later and not at all clouded by the passage of time or the usage of alcohol- their exchange went like this:

Carla: Oh.  So if I set my watch an hour ahead that would be twice as good, right?
Becky: That's a great idea, Carla!

Carla changes her watch

Carla: Well look at that- It's time for my lunch break!

Carla Exits, Rebecca is speechless, third-grade me cracks the eff up

I don't bring this up because I want to leave work as soon as I get here (let me clarify- I want to leave work as soon as I get here, but that's not why I bring this up).  No.  I was thinking about Carla Tortelli and her early lunch break because lately from the minute I get to work all I can think about is eating my lunch.  And my snacks.  And potentially some really delicious stuff from the vending machine.  And maybe something that someone is kind enough to put on the table by the microwave to share with the office.  Because I am a child.

I basically spend the whole day playing both the role of Augustus Gloop and his mother (had she been an actual responsible mother, the kind who says, "You can have that left over burrito once you've done two things for work and Facebook doesn't count).  Yes, as a grown-up who hasn't even counted as a "recent college graduate" for years, I have to set a schedule for when I can eat whatever food I bring from home/find around the office because if I didn't I would eat it all at once, ten minutes after my breakfast, with no relationship to actual hunger, but seemingly just because I can, and it's here, and I would certainly always rather be unwrapping a Cinnabon bar (put it int he microwave for seven seconds, you'll thank me) than typing an e-mail to a coworker, and can easily picture a world in which I catapult myself to a crazy sugar high and then am discovered sleeping it off under my desk.  So yeah.  If I stop thinking of work as a life-sucking fun-drain, I can always think of it as that thing I do to earn more/space out the consumption of roasted salted almonds from my drawer.  Success.

And the Bargain Deli Platter Goes To...

From an unnamed production office for an undisclosed television show in an address-withheld building in LA where the elevators are shockingly slow...

The TV show I work for is somewhere between a real small potatoes show, and a regular small potatoes show, so last night when we were graced with a special guest who was a 2010 Oscar nominated performer, no one was more surprised or delighted than our staff.  The word came down straight from the top: Spiff up the Green Room!  Pull out all the stops!  Spare no expense!  Show this actor that we know who they are and we respect them!  TAKE THIS SMALL BILL AND GET THEM A HORMEL PEPPERONI AND CHEESE TRAY FROM RALPH'S FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS GLAMOUR!

And so it was:

And so it remained completely un-eaten.  Until about 11 p.m. when two of my coworkers and I went to tidy up, discovered it, turned on Real Housewives of New York, kicked up our feet on the dressing room coffee table, and went to town. 

There was also classy fruit:

And Shamrock cookies.  They were not available for blog photography.  Because we ate them all.