Hold the Mayo

About two weeks ago I was having a rough week. (More stories to follow)  I was asked to host a meeting with 12hrs notice for some pretty important people visiting Chicago.  No big deal.  After allowing myself a minute to use a few expletives and stomping my feet I got it together and started to organize at 3:02pm on a Monday.  There were two vegetarians so I made sure to order their meals properly and ask for my meal to be made without mayo.  I said three times "no mayo".  I find mayonnaise and miracle whip amazing, in the sense that I am amazed people want to put liquid fat with a bland flavor on their food.  There is no miracle about it, the texture and the taste gross me out.  I'm actually gagging right now as I think about writing descriptive words for it.  Ugh.


When our afternoon lunch came I walked the delivery guy back downstairs and paid him.  I walked the delivery guy downstairs thinking I had enough time to head back upstairs to alert people of which meals belonged to who.  Unfortunately as soon as I walked out the chow down started so my no mayo sandwich went to the President of the organization we were meeting with that day.  He wasn't holding back his appetite so I had no opportunity to stop him and make a trade.  In fact he was half way done with his meal by the time I got back up to the 16th floor.

The meeting went well despite the minor food setbacks of the day.  When I was on my way out I realized there was some extra food left.  There is sometimes a homeless man in Lincoln Park which is near my apartment, and I figured I would give him the left over sandwiches.  (I sometimes give him my breakfast as an excuse to go to Starbucks).  It was a particularly humid and an uncomfortably steamy 92 degree day.  When I got on the bus I found out that the air condition was not working on this bus.  It felt like a cheap sauna in Peru (Em you know the Sauna I'm talking about).  I was wearing a dress so I deduced I could handle it for 25minutes.  I found a seat next to a friendly looking face who looked like Jerry Seinfeld but with a smaller nose, blue eyes, and blond hair.  As per usual I somehow began chatting with this friendly guy sitting next to me.  We talked about a few things before the heat began to bother me and my stomach started making gurgling noises.

Guy:  "Is that your stomach?"
Me:  "Yeah, I think it's because it's so hot and sweaty on this bus."
Guy:  "Oh umm ok.  So what's with all the food you're carrying?"

As soon as he said that I looked down at the food and saw a vision of the sandwich I ate for lunch.  Both sides of the bread was coated in mayo.  I took one of the pieces off and tried to scrape the mayo off but it was all over the meat, cheese, and lettuce too.  When the President of the organization saw what I was doing he said "Why didn't you just order yours without mayo?"  In my head I said If you hadn't eaten through the plastic you might have seen that it said CLARA - NO MAYO on the sandwich you inhaled!  What I really said was "Yeah next time I'll do that.  Good idea."  I ate a few bites which was enough for me to realize that my stomach was angry at the mayo.  I decided to discard the rest of the sandwich and eat the tiny fist sized salad instead.

On the bus the sound of my stomach fighting with the white creamy condiment combined with the heat was adding to my vision of it putrefying in my stomach.  I instantly felt like throwing up.  As soon as the bus jerked into the next stop it was as if an electric shock ran up my backside I stood straight up and bolted to the rear exit, shoving people, and dropping one of the bags of sandwiches.  Much like a sandwich Cinderella the blond Jerry grabbed the left over bag and followed me off the bus.  At this point I had dropped my laptop bag and handbag in the grass and was sitting up on my knees ripping off my cherry red cardigan.  He stood there in silence as I began to swing the cardigan around my face as some type of limp fan.  He took out a notebook and fanned me then asked if I was alright.  I felt that at any minute I was going to explode and probably all over his leather bound notebook if he didn't get it out of my face.  I kept my mouth sealed shut which looked like a straight line on my now flushed face.  He knelled down beside me and rubbed my back just as I turned onto all fours groaning "Oh mylanta!  Oh.Good.God.  I feel awful."  I faced downward towards the grass, just in case.  I was feeling dizzy and according to Blond Jerry I was now a greenish color.  He asked again "Are you OK?  Can I go get you something?"  I groaned "It was the maaaayo! Uuuuuugh"  I'm fairly nice and helpful but even I would have left me at this point.  What guy thinks to himself "It's cool, I'll just waste 30min of my day with a crazy girl who has a stomach ache on La Salle."  I'm sure he was really thinking "Why did I follow this crazy girl off the bus?  I could have eaten her sandwiches too."  I rolled from all fours onto my rear end and hiked up my dress a little above my knees and shoved my head between my legs. 

After what seemed like an eternity the queasy feeling subsided and I started to feel better.  It was only then that I realized the strangeness of the situation.  A complete stranger that I spoke to for maybe 10minutes was rubbing my back and softly telling me that I would be alright.  I came to my senses and felt utterly embarrassed.  Both hands flew up to my face in an attempt to shield myself from the look of confusion and caution that was beaming at me from Blond Jerry's eyes.  He asked to walk me back to my apartment and I told him I would be just fine.  He walked me to my apartment anyway and carried my heavy laptop bag.  It was an awkward goodbye but I tried my best to express my gratitude for sitting next to me on the middle of one of the busiest streets while I had a "personal moment" as he so politely called it.

It turns out that there are nice guys out there and if Blond Jerry happens to be running in God's Sainthood contest he has my vote!