In two weeks we’re all supposed to convene at the corporate office for our monthly meeting. I start thinking about these things weeks ahead of time, awashed in anxiety long before I am sitting there, bored to death, hoping that my snoring doesn’t disturb anyone else’s peaceful slumber and trusting that someone will remove, before it becomes too terribly obvious to everyone else in the room, that not-so attractive drool that oftentimes strings from my bottom lip to just above my knees. After all, that’s what friends are for.

My issues, however, are more complex than those simple but inappropriate displays of wishing I were somewhere else. You see, at each of these gatherings, lunch is provided by one vendor or another, lunch for which, per the company-wide memo, we are supposed to express our overwhelming gratitude. Repeatedly.

Now I will agree that anything free is deserving of some display of gratitude. But these lunches are, for me, nothing more than a grown-up version of those awful sweaters that my grandmother used to knit me for my birthday, those times when I forced myself to say, “Golly gee whillikers, thanks,” as I threw up ever so slightly in my mouth. “Ain’t no fucking way this shit will ever be seen in public,” I’d think to myself just as my mother looked me in my eyes, read my thoughts, and smacked me a good one.

You see, each month, at these meetings, there’s not a lot of menu options. Sometimes almost-decent deli sandwiches are brought in, sandwiches of two varieties: ham, and turkey. For those of us who don’t eat red meat, that means we’re having a turkey sandwich for lunch. But for those of us who show up right on time and not twenty minutes early, the only option still available is a ham sandwich (presumably because the folks who show up early are also the ones who want everyone to think that they’re  dieting or health-conscious, in spite of the obvious signs that neither is true…so they snatch up those turkey sandwiches, sometimes two or three at a time, but even if they only grab one, that illusion of their diet is always shattered about the time dessert is served.)

With all the turkey ones gone long before my arrival, I’m left with the option of choosing from a rather impressive display of sandwiches, none of which I’ll eat. “Just pick off the ham,” the others say, presumably because, in their minds, people who don’t eat red meat don’t mind eating sandwiches comprised of soggy white bread, wilted leaf lettuce, slices of not-so-moist and barely-ripe tomatoes, and pickles with a hint of a fairly suspicious twang to them. Yes, because I don’t eat red meat, I’m somehow supposed to have a palate much like that of an outside dog. Thanks, but I’ll pass.

Ok, but perhaps I am being unfair because, honestly, it’s not always deli sandwiches. Yes sometimes it’s giant aluminum trays of lasagna from that place on the Southside that’s known for adding extra meat free of charge. Oh goody. And on those days, nobody pretends to be dieting, no matter that the breadth of one’s ass might rival the size of an ocean liner. After all, it’s LASAGNA!

But for me (perhaps I haven’t mentioned this, but I don’t eat red meat), lasagna falls rather decidedly in the not-so-much category. I mean, I’ll pass. And even if I did consider it the least bit appetizing to gnash upon the flesh of some dead cow, I’m of the opinion that it’s more than just a bit unsavory to serve myself a meal from a communal, aluminum trough. And that’s true even if the politest of folks have periodically waved their hands over it, shooing the flies off that top layer of cheese. Yeah, seriously, I’ll pass.

But then there’s always dessert.

Because I work in a field that is dominated by women and because there’s a widely held belief that, if it walks upright and doesn’t have testicles, it eats chocolate by the metric ton, dessert at these meetings can be only one of two things: chocolate chunk cookies or chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

And that’s great, really, really great, if, of course, you like chocolate. Or can eat chocolate. But I fall into neither category.

I hesitate to be too honest, though, to come right out and say that chocolate tastes like the smell of the armpits of that guy who used to sit by himself at the front of the school bus. If I were to confess this, I know that I’d be met with open-mouth stares and I’d surely be the subject of conversations around the copier that start off with, “I always thought she was a man…really, I did…I mean, after all, have you seen her in a skirt? Oh god, it’s clear she started her hormone therapy way too late in life…and did you hear….she doesn’t even like chocolate!”

That said, I usually try to get by with the half truth: I’m allergic to chocolate.

This, you’d expect, might garner me some sympathy, maybe a pat on the knee, some friendly recognition that, because of a health issue that is rather obviously beyond my control, some little medical oddity for which I have absolutely no responsibility, I simply can’t pound down the chocolate like the rest of them, as though I have some South American parasite that can only be destroyed by consuming so much chocolate that my bodily fluids all smell of and have the coloring of Hershey's cocoa.

That my fondness for breathing continues to outweigh any desire to eat the dark stuff does not, however, seem to provoke much empathy. Instead, as they smack their lips and lick their fingers, waiting in line for second and third helpings, they periodically look back over their shoulders at me, the nicest of them mouthing, “Tranny traitor freak,” and I look down and make notes to remind myself to bring my own lunch next time.