The Cost of Lunch

Last night, I packed myself a lunch of leftovers to bring to work today like normal. This morning the girls prepared my lunch bag for me which typically has my morning snack (Special K bar, banana, & cherry pomegranate juice), leftovers & my afternoon snack (apple & or grapes). Well rushing out the door, I saw the bag & picked it up (or so I thought) then hit the door to drop Olivia off @ school.

When I finally arrived at work around 9ish, I realized that I did not really pick up my lunch bag & shouted SHIT!!! (inside my head).

So I darted to Mickey D’s for a large OJ & fuck, I gave in to a sausage egg & cheese biscuit (I did not eat the top half biscuit in an attempt to lessen the caloric & fat intake).

With breakfast out of the way, all I had to do was get lunch; I set in my mind to go to Macy’s Marketplace to pick up a little something.

So now it's 1pm, I’m up in the Marketplace & grab a chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat, a country fresh salad, bottle of water & damn, I gave in to the food urges & got an oatmeal raisin cookie. $9.79 later, I was making my way back through Macy’s but to get out, I had to go through the mens dept.

My eyes kept on focusing on sale signs, new spring wear etc, but I kept strong & kept moving. Well at least until I got to the shoe dept. where I spotted a pair of brown Clark casuals. Next thing you know, I asked for a size 12, moments later I was signing a credit slip & the shoes were in my possession.

As you can see, today, I totally fucked up everything that I said I was not going to do far as food & money. I will redeem myself tonight @ the gym and ask the elliptical machine for forgiveness.

OK, so now I am back at the office eating my lunch, (whole sandwich, half of the salad & half of the cookie) while reading a few blogs. My last blog stop was the “Concrete Loop”, where I read a story about Haitians eating “mud cookies” to survive.

Initially, I thought that this was a spoof but soon realized this was some real shit & did some Googling to find more news about it. Suddenly, I felt socially bad about my lunch time escapade @ Macy’s & wished I had taken Suite Suzy up on her offer to bring my lunch bag to me (She is home sick but functional & also taking care of Sade who barfed a few times this am).

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Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt
By: Jonathan M. Katz (AP)

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal. (Read More Here)

Also check out this photo slideshow; pretty powerful!