The best thing since sliced bread

I’m still in the office, despite my best attempts to be promoted to a ‘working from home’ or ‘consultant’ position.

But as it’s the start of a whole new week, I’ve decided to mix things up. I strode into the office this morning brandishing my bike helmet. ‘Hello!’ I exclaimed to the room filled with people silently working. ‘Good morning!’ No-one seemed to notice that I had cycled in to work, so I took care to bump my helmet along their desks as I found mine.

I settled myself into my desk. ‘Not much room here today,’ I exclaimed loudly. ‘What with my cycle helmet and all.’ No-one responded, but I hadn’t finished.

Yesterday, I went to Tesco. Usually, I probably wouldn’t mention this, but modestly sweep it under the carpet of my excellent grown-upness, but this trip was different. Tesco had filled its reduced rate shelf. I picked up a pre-made Italian pasta thing for 46p, a tuna and cucumber sandwich for 27p and, in a final coup, a loaf of white pre-sliced bread for 26p.

‘The best thing since sliced bread!’ I told the bemused cashier. I suppose a soft benefit of working in Tesco is the pearls of wisdom that must rain down on you as you man the till. (Oddly, the cashier was equally un-responsive when I told him this).

I ate as much of my 26p loaf as I could, but I still had a few slices left over. So this morning, before I got onto my cycle, I made a packed lunch.

My colleagues hadn’t seemed particularly interested in my cycling to work, but surely even they couldn’t resist my delicious packed lunch. I slowly removed my Tupperware from my bag and attempted to fit it onto my over-crowded desk.

‘Mmm,’ I said loudly, balancing the lunch precariously on my lap. ‘Packed lunch.’ I rattled the Tupperware about a bit to show it off in all its glory. A flash of silver showed me that one of my carefully tin-foil wrapped sandwiches had come loose during its energetic cycle across London.

I didn’t have any spare tin-foil on me (I need to travel light, what with all my cycling and so on), so I decided that the only thing to do was eat the unwrapped sandwich. But once I had eaten it, I noticed that the rest of my packed lunch looked rather bereft. I was keen that my colleagues did not think of me as someone who had made an insufficient, pathetic packed lunch, so I decided that the only thing to do was eat the evidence.

My colleagues seemed a little surprised that I was eating half a loaf of bread at 9.35am, but I assume they thought it was part of my stringent cycling programme. I am excited for tomorrow, when the ‘how to cycle and eat bread’ flyers I have had made will be distributed all over the office. They’ll be promoting me to an ‘out of office’ position in no time.