Let’s just say… there weren’t many healthy choices

Corby’s recent post about how a Whopper is similar to a website got me thinking about our lunch escapades when a bunch of us first met at a little media and development agency in Peterborough. At it’s pinnacle, there were 9-10 of us… a few permanent fixtures and some guys that floated in and out, some crossing paths and others only seeing remnants of past code. A lot of good things came out of that culmination of brain power, eccendtricity, and idiocy. But I’ll keep to the subject at hand: our (mostly) poor choices at lunch half-hour meals.

Here’s the cast: CS, DC, EB, CP (← that’s me!), AK, RN, BA, AL, TC, and everyone’s favourite human, JC. Real names are kept private to protect the innocent.

Myself, I have four years of experience inside those particular walls, and in various fast food establishments with this motley crew, to draw on. How did it start? I’ll write as I recall and hopfully this’ll come together coherently. I’m determined that this post will be completed with zero AI involvement. After all, what the hell does ChatGPT know about spicy Kung Pao chicken and a trip to the ER, anyway?

In the beginning there was lunch from home

It was a smaller group when I was recruited: CS, DC, EA, and JC + me:

• CS went home for lunch every day—likely scarfing down fried potatoes and hot dogs
• God only knows what DC was eating out of a brown paper bag in his studio
• EA survived soley on Mr. Noodl, breakfast, and dinner
• I’d see JC mixing cottage cheese and raspberry jam in the kitchen every day

Sometimes I’d bring leftovers… curry, jambalaya, menudo—I’m drawn to one-dish cassarole-style meals I can eat with a spoon. Other times I’d whip out to grab whatever garbage was close by… Wendy’s or Tim Hortons (shudder at the thought of what Tim’s was “cooking” up back then). I did go through a phase where I was buying combos at the hot counter at a nearby Independent Grocer, but even that was on the diabetes trajectory—breaded chicken burgers and onion rings. Then came some budding friendships and agreement to escape the grind together for an hour every day in seach of stress relief with extra cheese.

Enter Whopper Wednesday

CS had an unheathly addiction to Burger King—ironicly, given that he [insert which he was happy to pass on the rest of us. I hadn’t thought much about Burger King since I was in high school skipping math class in favour of Original Chicken Sandwiches and a few puffs with an even less savoury group of individuals. But I digress. CS, who would have been a financial planner in another life, extolled the virtues of Whopper Wednesday on us: the char-broiled burger, the reasonable price, and his ability to get us all there and back again within half an hour. And breaking a few land speed records, he pulled it off. Whoppers every Wednesday was a treat, and we saved 49 cents each at the same time.

Read Corby’s post about Whoppers and websites

AK and the Pizza Hut lunch buffet

AK and RN had joined the team by now. And AK, wanting some variety in his lunch options—but still no vegetables—he trucked us all to and from the Pizza Hut lunch buffet in his unaffordable Ford Echo.

More to come…

The 2-4-1 days

Good content goes here.

I saved the best for last… Kung Pao</h2

Even more good content goes here.