The dreaded office pitch-in

You know it's gonna happen: the dreaded, diet-busting office pitch-in. They post the sign-up list on somebody's cubicle and I start wondering "how bad will it be?" How many bags of hydrogenated oil-soaked chips will be piled on the "goodie" table? Who will bring in the artificially-flavored, neon-pink frosted cupcakes encrusted with sprinkles from the local Megamart in all of their plastic-covered glory?

Come on, you all know what I'm talking about. You know which of your co-workers makes a mean molded-fruit-and-mini-marshmallow Jello salad and can be expected to bring it to every potluck. Somebody else always brings a tiny tub of store-bought macaroni salad (as if everyone could be expected to only scoop out one measly noodle). You can always count on the single guy in the group who brings artificially-flavored barbecue potato chips and canned whey-based dip with dehydrated onion. By the way, whoever came up with the idea of barbecue-flavored potato chips? Who would barbecue a potato? Was someone in the lab at Frito-Lay sitting around pining for the good old days when their mom would fire up the grill and make REAL barbecue-flavored chips, and decided they just HAD to duplicate that down-home flavor in a beaker?

Anyway, I had to face down a potluck today. It was "Records Clean-Up Day," which is a pretentious way of saying that we all had a lot of papers and shit to clean out of our cubicles so we can store some more. So to make the occasion more festive our AA arranged a pitch-in.

I did pretty well. There are some people in our group who enjoy healthy stuff who brought fresh cut fruit, fresh raw veggies, and trail mix, and I indulged in all of those. But I also had a hot dog.

I can hear y'all screaming now BUT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S IN THOSE and they will basically LODGE THEMSELVES in your AORTA and you will die immediately. Honestly, hot dogs don't really bother me all that much. I figure they are actually a good use of all the bits and pieces that would otherwise get thrown away. Very frugal. Plus there's nothing better at a ball park, and I'll bet I only have a hot dog two or three times a year which hasn't killed me yet. I do draw the line at the other tube-shaped meat products. Potted meat? Please. When a list of ingredients begins with the phrase "mechanically-separated pork shoulder" I avoid it just because of the mental picture it evokes.

So I had my plain little hot dog with some mustard, and loaded up on the fruits and veggies. Now I'm ready for baseball season, which means spring training is right around the corner, which means spring is coming soon! Yay!