Weight Gain: Blame-free

It's been ages since I used conversations and occurrences from work to write blogs, but every so often you're given a chance to highlight just how misguided and, yes, idiotic some of the other inhabitants of our fair isle actually are.

Due to a work-related problem, I had to visit a different site yesterday morning. It was a last-minute thing and as such certain people weren't aware that I wasn't in my normal office that morning. Our canteen staff fall into this group.

Now, I'm what you might call a creature of habit. I have the same breakfast every morning (when else would you have it?) - 2 pieces of dry brown toast and beans. Simple, healthy and above all, cheap. Such is the regularity of me having this, that all I need to do is ask for 'the usual' and it will be done. It is important that you bear in mind the fact I have to visit the canteen and physically ask for this.

When I returned to my normal office today, I visited the canteen and ordered 'the usual'. I was then accused of causing one of the canteen staff members to gain weight. Her logic was thus:

- She had made my usual rounds of toast yesterday morning
- I obviously didn't turn up, so
- She ate them instead

Slightly taken aback at the ridiculousness of the statement (even by their standards), I then countered with three questions of my own:

- Why did you write down my order when I didn't actually ask for it?
- Given that I hadn't turned up to order it, and the quick nature of making toast, why didn't you just hang on on the off-chance that I'd forgotten to order and turned up anyway?
- How did you manage to put weight on by eating 2 slices of dry brown toast?

I must confess I didn't ask the first two questions, simply because I've had arguments in the past about pre-empting my order (to the extent that I've sometimes deliberately ordered something else to prove myself right - what a wag). I did however ask the final question.

Her response was succinct.

"Well, I didn't want to eat them dry, so I put butter on them"

Oh, so that's why it's my fault. You buttered the toast I would have eaten dry to suit your own taste, and therefore it's my fault you may put weight on. Maybe I should have suggested that the next time this happens (cos I know for a fact it will eventually), she actually covers the toast in dog dirt. The resulting stomach problems will cause her to lose weight (through vomiting, the trots, etc) and can only presume I will be held up as some kind of a hero for bringing about miracle weight loss.

At my place of work, stranger things have literally happened.