The lovable young chap Gary May made an “uh-oh” on his first day of the job when he walked into a very important meeting holding his brand-spanking-new lunchbox rather than a briefcase like his fellow co-workers. He attempted to play it off by sitting down with gusto and confidence, but he was eventually shot down when they asked him about his thoughts on administration, which he misheard as “a minestrone.” He then pulled out his little thermos, thinking that the conversation had shifted to soup-related affairs.
“Ugh! I really heckin’ did it this time,” May said. “I didn’t even have enough Oreos to share! Just two, the labeled serving size.”
The UC Davis administration team had planned this meeting to go over the parameters of letting more students onto campus next year — a matter with which May was hardly familiar.
“I near spit out my juice!” May said. “That many kids? We only added two rows of bike parking to the Silo. Where will they all go?”
May wanted to stress-eat, like we all do. But he was once again embarrassed when he had to open his tin lunch box during a quiet lull in the meeting, as tin is the least forgiving of all lunchbox materials when it comes to discrete openings.
“This is actually a collectable, so I can’t get too cross with it,” May laughed. “It’s from the 1982 class Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I really cherish it.”
Members of the meeting were not as pleased with this blunder. One person in particular, who was sitting at the farthest corner of the table, had some firm opinions.
“I just think that some of us could have taken this a little more seriously,” said the person, who upon further investigation was discovered to be Linda Katehi in a fake mustache and sunglasses. She was promptly booted back to her perch in the CoHo.
Gary May has stated that he’ll definitely invest in a real briefcase before the next meeting. He’s looking into online suppliers that might be willing to customize his new digs with a subtle starfleet insignia right across the front.
Oh, and he’d like one with a pocket for his thermos of minestrone.
Written by: Olivia Luchini — ocluchini@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
