The combination of being a huge fan of good food, pledging to eating massive amounts of fruits and veggies daily and general dinner time exhaustion can only mean one thing when you leave lip-licking lunch leftovers at work—weeping in the garage (so that only the dog sees how pitiful you are over a forgotten PF Chang’s chopped chicken salad).

For some people, this is all going to sound pretty stupid.  But, for others—you get it.  Those who get it know the sacrifice and patience that’s involved in harvesting lunch leftovers.

For starters, you have been SO GOOD and that is not always easy when it comes to food.  You really wanted to eat every last bite (and “tongue swish” the serving plate) of that yummy 2,000 calorie/10-serving salad, but you restrained yourself and ate less than half because it was “just the right thing to do.”

Once you’ve made it past that major hurdle—you find that you are still thinking of that salad about 3 pm when your blood sugar drops and you want to go and get it out of the mini-fridge and chow it down, even if it means eating it with your fingers because the restaurant didn’t stick a plastic fork in the doggie bag.   You even spend time fantasizing about licking your fingers until dinner because traces of salad dressing lingers.

And, finally, there is the glee you start to feel because you are not going to have to cook yourself dinner.  You are going to have something “restaurant yummy” for two meals in one day.    How often does that happen in the life of the average person, especially in this economy?

So, yes—a good weeping is appropriate if even one of these scenarios matches your thoughts and/or behaviors.  Your entire day has been ruined by sheer disappointment in yourself for not post-it-noting your entire office with reminders to take your lunch harvest home.

Anyway, that is what happened to me today.  In the end (this time), it worked out OK for me in terms of diet compliance.   I had built up the leftover salad so large in my mind, nothing else could live up to it.  I choked down the last couple of fruit and vegetable servings (carrots and peaches) and ended my food journey for the day.

I also started thinking about the weekend and the possibilities I could cook up in the kitchen.  That made me excited.  I decided I’m going to dust off the WOK my husband and I received as a wedding gift almost 18 years ago and saute away.  I’ve heard you can do wonders with veggies with the WOK.  No, it won’t be PF Chang’s.   But, I can make massive amounts of delicious WOK creations this weekend—and, then I’ll leave them at home on Monday so that I have nothing to eat for lunch. . .and, then I’ll weep in the supply closet for a while . .and, then I’ll run down the street to PF Chang’s and order another one of those salads.   But, this time. . .I’ll probably eat the entire thing–which, I wish I would have done today.  And, you might be wishing I’d done that too because then you wouldn’t be subjected to this blog entirely devoted to leftover lunch.