"Did it have a tomato in it?"

Lauren, one of the two "hostesses" in our office, asked.

"Yes." I worriedly replied.

"I am SO SORRY!" Lauren distraughtly said "But the tomato had gotten squished and it was leaking, so I thought the whole thing was old and I threw it away."

She went on to apologize again for throwing out my just-brought-in-that-morning bag of food and offered to buy me lunch.

I let her know that paying for my lunch was not necessary and to have no worries.

I then walked over to the kitchen's garbage can and glanced in...

it was already three-quarter's full...

and the contents that I could see were not pretty...

some dead flowers,

a couple of coffee pots worth of grounds,

empty drinking cups, and

soiled paper towels.

But wait...way at the bottom, could it be?

Yes it could!

I spotted part of my fancy-schmancy Wal-Mart "lunch" bag.

I looked around to see if the coast was clear...

and then with my right hand wrapped in a wad of paper towels, I reached way down into the garbage can, past all of the nasty stuff and retrieved MY lunch!

There was NO WAY I was going to allow my-got-up-early-to-grill chicken breast, my last-night-took-the-time-to-boil eggs and the fresh-from-the-store's-produce-dept. strawberries, all of which were separately wrapped, go to waste.

As soon as I got out what I needed...

I threw the bag, along with the squished tomato and its juice, back into the garbage can and happily went to my new corporate desk and ate my lunch.

munch munch munch