Friday, March 14, 2008

Friday Lunch with the Guys


Every Friday my co-workers & I try to go out for lunch. The question starts sometime after 10am. Where does everyone want to go...Dim Sum...Indian Buffet...Thai....? Today we all decided on Mediterranean Food. So we snuck out of the office a bit before noon because we knew that if we didn't...
1. We may have a hard time finding a parking spot....and...
2. The restaurant gets really busy, especially on a Friday.

We get out to the parking lot and all of us pile into the Peter bus. This is the name we called Peter's old van. When he finally bought his new Toyota Matrix we continued to call it the Peter bus. You see he's the only one that can fit all 5 of us in 1 vehicle. Most others either have really small cars or they have baby seats to contend with.

Anybody familiar with the city I work in knows the downtown is mostly made up of one way streets. This wouldn't be so bad except today Peter made a bad choice. When we got to the first main intersection we could see that the train barriers were down and a train was slowly making its way through. So Peter turned right which was a good thing because we were turning onto a one way street and a right turn at least had us going in the correct direction. Then he does a left and this was where he made a bad choice. Instead of going straight through he turned left again. Now we are on another one way street and we are going the right way. The problem is the train. We now are stuck watching this train painfully crawling by. We can't back up or turn around, so we are stuck. Waiting.....
I look over to my right and there is a huge park. "So is this bus a four wheel drive?" I ask. Peter wants to know why I want to know this. I pointed to the park and told him if he could just get over the first snowbank we could cut over to the next street which by the way has an overpass over the tracks.

Well now it's open season on Peter while we wait for the 100 plus rail cars to pass. The guys start giving him a hard time about how he never cleans his car. They picked things up off the floor in the back seat and tried to identify the the brewing science projects and would then chuck it over their shoulders into the rear compartment. Lets see... hmmm.... plastic container with some mystery leftovers in it. Chuck. A spoon. Chuck. Empty water bottles and full, half frozen ones. Chuck... chuck... chuck....

Then they find the beef jerky package. Now, I might add that this beef jerky package was first discovered about 6 weeks ago on a similar road trip on a Friday afternoon. The package in question turned out to be that very same one. Ewwww! We all remembered Peter telling us back then NOT to open it. He had placed a banana peel in it a few days before and said he hadn't got around to throwing it out yet. So the guys are now holding it up for inspection to see what, if anything, was growing within. Ewwww! miniature composter. Then I heard a thud as it bounced off the back window. I told Peter as a matter of fact that bananas give off gases as they decompose and if it explodes in his car he will be invaded by the largest fruit fly infestation known to mankind. I made this up but Peter is just so gullible. By now the train is stopped and it looks like it might start going back from where it just came from. Holey moley so much for leaving a bit early. We have been waiting for what seemed like an eternity already. We continue to poke fun at Peter pointing out that his new car has not yet lost it's new car smell.The train finally got far enough down the tracks and the barriers go up.

We get to the next corner and end up in the same discussion as the last few Fridays. You see there is this billboard we pass by, and at first we thought it was a joke. It's a bright yellow ad for a brand new cereal. Diamond Shreddies So of course by now we have all seen the commercial on national television, so the joke really was on us. Let the comments begin. Great marketing strategy. No it's not...yes it is... just think of how many people will run out and buy Shreddies now thinking it's something new. No they won't...will too.... not...will too...uh huh....

When we got back to the office after lunch I was walking up the stairs when Peter took me aside and in a quiet whisper asked me if fruit flies came from maggots....told you he was gullible.....