...and no one missed me.

I'm posting this because I believe there are others who may find the plight of young single male fresh college graduates hilarious.

This is about my lunch break.

I rarely go home, but this time, I decided I'd take the leap. I was alone in the office, which is unusual, and decided to put some supper in this crock pot slow cooker thing my mom gave me. I promised her I'd use it yesterday after confessing to having left it idle for the two and a half weeks that I've had it.

I intended to eat lunch, so I grabbed some milk for the cereal. Yes, cereal counts as lunch.

I got home and got to work on one of the three recipes for the crock pot slow cooker thing. I decided on some kind of venison stroganoff concoction. I took the frozen venison my mom had given me and microwaved it while I figured out the other steps. Mom had called for 8 oz. of mushrooms. I had no mushrooms. I wanted them, but I had none. She called for some chopped garlic or onions. I had something that resembled what I thought garlic should be. It was wrapped in a bag and was in the bag of ingredients from my mom. I decided it must be garlic. Whatever it was, I know that when weeding the garden as a kid, it would have been one of the things that I was told NOT to pull out. So, I chopped it up.

Now, my cutting board is smaller than most mousepads. In the process of chopping up the garlic, my cutting board somehow wound up halfway off the counter. I finally realized this fact as it was falling off the counter. I managed to save about half of the garlic pieces.

By this time, the venison had been done microwaving for a long time. I quickly threw both the venison and the garlic into the crock pot slow cooker thing and turned it on "low." I then added the cream of mushroom soup and one cup of water my mom had called for.

So, my venison stroganoff concoction was on its way. However, I was still missing mushrooms and onions. I decided I needed to see if I could make up for them. Nothing in the cupboards seemed to fit, so I opened the fridge. I contemplated adding cheese. I mean, hey, this state is the cheese state. If it weren't for cheese, we wouldn't have cheeseheads, and if it weren't for cheeseheads, I wouldn't have gotten the summer job I had last year. (I'll save that story for another post, if anyone's interested.)

I came to my senses before adding the cheese. I did, however, find garlic. I believe my sister bought it when she visited me a few months ago. I don't know how long garlic lasts, but it looked okay, and I still wasn't 100% confident that what I'd cut up earlier actually was garlic. So, I took out a piece, chopped it up, and added it.

I decided my venison stroganoff concoction was okay, and left the crock pot slow cooker thing to do its job. By this time, half an hour of my lunch break was gone, so I needed to hurry with the haircut that I wanted.

Through high school and college, I almost always cut my own hair. Any time I was visiting my family, I'd pull out the electric clippers and buzz it down. Five months later, with my hair out of control, I'd repeat the process. After leaving home for good and living on my own, three and a half hours from the clippers, I bought my own. $15 (or $10, for that matter) just doesn't make sense when you can do it yourself for a one-time fee of $20.

Problem is, I don't have a tri-fold mirror, and I don't have another mirror other than the one in my bathroom. One mirror is usually just fine. Until you have to cut the back of your hair.

In short, half an hour later, I'd cut my hair, taken a shower, and decided I could still go out in public. I believe there's a spot behind my left ear that has a little less hair than the rest of my head, and I'm not sure that I got the back of my head even. (Yes, I did attempt two different lengths, leaving the sides shorter than the top.) But, I'm sure whoever sits behind me at church will let me know if I screwed anything up too much. Or they'll start laughing uncontrollably ten minutes into the sermon and will have to leave the sanctuary.

But hey, my hair is shorter, and I'm pretty sure that's what I was trying to accomplish.

So an hour (and ten minutes) after leaving for lunch (which I forgot to eat), I returned to the office. No phone messages. No instant messages. No emails.

I made supper (I hope), cut my hair, and took a shower.

And no one missed me. :-)

UPDATE: I just found a few strands in the back that were too long. Thankfully, no one had seen the haircut yet and I was able to grab the office scissors and take care of those strands. How those spots now match up with the rest of the back of my head is, well, of little concern. At least this time I didn't have to go up to the lady at the gift shop, ask to borrow her scissors "for something," and head into the public restroom to use the mirror there to cut those strands, all the while hoping that no one would walk in on me standing at the sink with a pair of scissors not fit for cutting anything but wrapping paper. (Yes, I had to do that a few months ago. I was on my way to Washington, D.C., cut my hair just before I left (bad idea), figured out two hours into the drive that I'd missed a spot, and had no alternative.)