As many of you know, the French Lunch, clearly deserving of two capital letters and internationally famous for its leisurely pace, is nothing to sneeze at. It is something that is at once beautiful to withhold, precariously difficult to execute correctly, and entirely worth working all day long for.
On most days, Jess (of the aforementioned Spacecake experience) and I take an hour and a half or so and pick a petit bistro, eat like sloths—whilst dreading the return to the American “oh, no thanks I’ll just eat this granola bar at my desk” lunch break—and then waddle contentedly back down the street to the office. However, every once in awhile, the evil twin of the French Lunch, the French Franprix Run, rears its ugly head with mixed results.
Franprix, a Safeway or Shaws-esque type grocery chain, is home to a sad and convenient array of culinary mockeries. Comté cheese that squishes between your fingers (wrong, I tell you!) and prepacked cold chicken salad dare desperate lunchers to waste a few euros rather than die of starvation from the shelves. At most, one expects fluorescent lighting, antsy checkers, and cheap wine from any Franprix worth its salt.
I’ve never been exceptionally skilled at packing a lunch and toting it to work, so when Jess had some work to finish up at the office a few days ago and our midday date was canceled, I made a French Franprix Run (poor decisions are always influenced by lack of breakfast) to avoid eating my keyboard at my desk.
Twenty minutes later, I emerged with a small box of Ritz crackers, an overpriced carton of raspberries, and a bunch of bananas. Clearly the Nutrition Fairy didn’t make an influential stop at my childhood.
Despite this haggard sounding meal, my growling stomach had decided to settle for it. I trotted back to the office, and was immediately faced with my two colleagues, back from their lunches, sitting at their desks across from mine, silently working away in that determined French way of theirs. It was this moment that I realized just how loud the Ritz crackers in my hand were about to become.
After attempting to open the package as quickly and soundlessly as I could (obviously failing), I bit down on a Ritz. I think I can say, in good faith, that I have never eaten anything louder in my life. So, doing what many people faced with a deathly quiet room and particularly crunchy food items do, I stopped chewing and self-consciously let the cracker get soggy and silent and chewed as noiselessly as I could. Compounded with my overwhelming hunger, I had no choice.
Now, of course, we all think we are being incredibly sly when we do this. The reality is, unfortunately, that it is very obvious to everyone around you that you are trying to avoid an uncomfortable chewing situation by holding your food in your mouth like a squirrel stopped in the middle of the road, hoping not to be seen.
This means it took me about 3 hours to eat approximately 5.5 standard-sized Ritz crackers. Not only that, the overpriced raspberries were covered in mold and the bananas, upon reaching my desk, inhaled deeply and ripened suddenly to a depressing brown and spotty state. My lovely coworkers managed not to comment on my seemingly bizarre eating habits, and most likely created a pool to see how many I got down before I bolted out the door at six o’clock and stood outside, eating whole crackers and crunching like a maniac.
I have learned my lesson. In the afternoons since then, Jess and I have taken refuge under the downy wing of the French Lunch, and I hereby promise to reserve the French Franprix Run for the apocalypse. And maybe cheap wine.
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