Who Knew?

By Belinda

Two separate parts of my psyche are constantly at war. One half of me gives the impression of being organized, but I have an alter ego that sprouts piles of paper like a pumpkins in a pumkin patch.

I love organizational tools that help keep the "messy me" at bay.

When a flyer arrived with the weekly newspaper, announcing the open of a new Solutions Store in nearby Newmarket I could not wait to pay them a visit.

They advertise themselves as being, "Your Organized Living Store."  Well, the promise of "organized living" is a hook that will reel me in every time.

So on Saturday, I went, and was not disappointed. It was hard to not get completely carried away with all of the amazing tools there. One thing I splurged on was a new lunch bag in a beautiful turquoise blue. They were on sale, 20% off, and I rationalized the purchase by thinking of all the money I save each week by making my lunch faithfully every day. It was time to retire my old faithful black zippered lunch bag and after carefully considering all of the sizes and shapes, I made my choice. I loved the colour and it even had a neatly designed spoon and fork attached.

Today, like a child with a new backpack for school, I tried out my new lunch bag for the first time.

Before leaving for work I packed a big container of tossed salad with a little home made oil and vinegar dressing, and in another small container I made a quick penne pasta, celery, tuna and mayonnaise, salad. I threw in half a banana left over from breakfast, and a small container of yogurt.


Lunchtime found me in my car on my way back to the office from somewhere, so I decided to stop at Chapters, the book store, and pick up a book I'd been meaning to get.  Then I decided to have lunch in my car in the parking lot. At this point I should have noticed that I was morphing into "Messy Me," just like the Incredible Hulk in the old TV series.

I undid the silver chain holding the fork and spoon together and tried to eat my salad. Did I mention that I was dressed in a black shirt and black pants?

Before starting to eat I had the brilliant idea of expediting lunch by mixing the two salads together and putting the pasta with tuna and celery on top of the tossed salad. Both salads now formed a precarious pile.

At first stab, I noticed that the fork was not penetrating the vegetables in my salad. Cherry tomatoes and crisp chunks of cucumber and celery began to shoot out of the bowl and land on the car seats or various places on my lap. I mopped several white splodges of mayonnaise from my pants before acknowledging that something was wrong with the fork, which seemed to be made out of very soft material that bent under any slight pressure.

I was faced with a bowl of salad and no hope of stabbing into anything, especially anything round.

This is why, if you had been parked in the car next to mine today, you could have looked over and seen me eating salad with my fingers, with an elegant lunchbag on the seat beside me.

It was only after getting home that it occurred to me that the fork and spoon on the outside of the lunchbag might be ornamental! Sort of a fashion accessory. I was trying to eat lunch with the decorative spoon and fork.

They are safely back where they belong, on the outside of the lunch bag. "Messy Me" is safely zippered inside my skin again--for the moment at least. :)