Ma Bell or Ma Hell?

I wondered when the calm would end and the meanness would begin.

With my mother that is.

Since the kitchen renovation has me in an uncharacteristically unshakable tailspin, I find myself, for the third time in a week, having forgotten my lunch.

I am a brown bagger. A habit I formed when Lars and I began our horrific divorce proceedings and I had to watch every penny. (Mostly I watched them go into his pockets. The ones on his low budget, business casual, unironed, 36 Short pants.) I eat an astonishing amount of food for a woman. But mostly veggies, egumes and protein, so I am not the size of a mobile home (Yet. I am sure the late night bacon fests will come back and haunt me eventually.) But still, to buy enough lunch to keep me from making at least one if not two trips daily to the vending machine, which is mostly stocked with a wide assortment of chips, but also carries scrumptious temptations like Lorna Doones and Twix Bars, I would have shelled out a ridiculous amount of money each day, just to keep my blood sugar above sea level.

So I started to take my lunches to work.  Artfully pack them and squirrel away my precious ingredients in the the same stupid refrigerator that is still in the attic. Wedge the stuff in among the wine bottles so Lars doesn't eat it himself, just for the sake of meanness.

And I am in the same routine now, only the salads and other things I pack are mainstreamed into the regular downstairs fridge. It is the sort of stuff that no kid in his right mind would crave, so it is safe from the children. No kid was ever caught sneaking off and hiding in the closet to scarf down a Caesar salad on the QT.

But this week I keep leaving the house having forgetten to bring what I've packed, and today, find myself schlepping to the hospital cafeteria to assemble a reasonably decent and not terribly overpriced salad from the salad bar.  While there, I observe one of my more tolerable colleagues picking over the celery pieces, examining and either keeping or throwing back piece after piece. I razz her a little for that. She's a good sport. We chat about this and that as we proceed down the salad cart and she asks if I am staying in the cafeteria for lunch.

I generally don't. Someone in HR is bound to be endlessly harassed in a public place like this. And everyone who stops you in the cafeteria seems to think that whatever is on their mind would obviously be on yours too, and that you will have full knowledge of the situation, full command of the applicable policies at play, and have a game plan at your fingertips, natch. In short, it is usually more fun to have one's teeth forcibly extracted than to brave the untamed wilds of the employee cafeteria.

But I have not seen this particular colleague for a while and tell her that if she is going to stay, then I'll be a sport and stay for a while, too.

We chat about all manner of things. Partners, kids, vacation plans. Interests we have outside of the office. Her most recent art project. My kitchen renovation Hell.

And as we sit and talk and eat I feel the table vibrate ever so slightly. Like my work blackberry is signaling a disaster.

But it is not mine. Hers?

No.

It's my iPhone. Charlotte is calling. And as I consider whether I can or should answer, the call goes to voicemail. I'll have to pick it up on the way back to my office.

A fairly long time goes by and the phone dings indicating a voicemail message. I look at the indicator.

"Voicemail from Charlotte."

Uh-oh. A long one. That can't be good.

And moments later, I get a little ding telling me I have just gotten a text from Charlotte.

I scarf down my lunch and say a quick goodbye to my friend, who really, is hard to offend, so I don't mind exiting the lunch a little quickly. I get on the elevator and once I am alone, I check my phone for instant messages.

Just one, from Charlotte.

"Call me later, please. Mom is crazy!"

And the games have begun.