Losing Lunch

One might think that losing your lunch means leaving it on the bus on the way to work, or dropping it on the ground on your way to the break room area, or forgetting your money to buy lunch on your break, or eating lunch then regurgitating it. At Disney I’ve seen all these happen… and they aren’t pretty.

I was on the bus the other day and a sweet oriental girl was talking to me. Although I had no idea what she was saying, I nodded when appropriate and we had a steady flow of meaningless conversation. We arrived at her stop and got up to exit the bus. She looked around to make sure she had gathered all her things and then left. BUT she had left without her lunch box. It was sitting in the seat between us and she must have been mistaken it for being part of my things in her rush to exit. Unfortunately, I don’t know if she got her lunch back or not. I hope she was able to at least get the lunch box back. It was cute. Poor oriental girl… she lost her lunch.

My co-worker, Michael, was starving and ran over to the Cast-O-Saurus, a cast only restaurant at the animal kingdom. He purchased an Italian meatball sub and a cup of soup. Why he bought a hot cup of soup and a hot Italian meatball sub on a super humid hot Floridian day is way beyond me. He decided to bring them back to the Dinosaur breakroom instead of eating them at the Cast-O-Saurus so he could eat in friendly air conditioned company. The walk between restaurant and break room is outside along the side of a road for about 100 yards. Within those 100 yards he managed to be unbalanced enough to drop his cup of soup onto the dirty ground. Crashing to the ground made the top pop off and the soup oozed into the gravel on the ground. THEN, I saw this poor cup of soup spilt on the ground as I was leaving that day with my co-worker, Ashley. We commented on the misfortune someone must be feeling because they lost their food. Michael walked up and mentioned the poor cup of soup. Then claimed it as his own…. poor Michael, he lost his lunch.

Earlier this week I was very tired when I woke up and didn’t have enough energy to think of what to pack up for lunch. I walked out the door only half awake, determined to buy food at Cast-O-Saurus. Unfortunately, my wallet didn’t make it out the door with me. It remained on my bed. My first break I went to get my wallet to go and buy food… no wallet. I checked pockets in my purses and corners in my locker. But, my wallet still remained MIA. I then searched for coins to purchase something from the vending machines. NO COINS! This was truly a sad day. I ended up eating otter pops, or ice pops, or whatever you call them because they were the only free food in the break room freezer. I think I ate 6 or so. Poor me, I lost my lunch… and ate pure frozen flavored sugar water instead.

Today, a young boy was entering the line to Dinosaur, but never made it inside the doors. He swayed, teetered, then leaned forward. His mouth opened and a spurt of liquid mush spilled out onto the ground. He straightened up and I thought he was done and going to be okay. But that thought only lasted a second before he doubled over again and a torrential spout of stomach mush emptied onto the ground much more intensely than before. That boy’s parents were so apologetic. They worried that their child was an inconvenience to the ride and hurried him to the bushes during his second break for breathing. But, as soon as he was within range of the bushes his mouth opened once more to usher out the last of his stomach’s contents. As a cast member we called in a ‘code v’ or ‘protein spill’ and a custodian came and cleaned it up. That boy was at Walt Disney World and instead of being scared to death on the Dinosaur ride, he’s vomiting. Poor b, he lost his lunch… the hard way.