twelve pounds

My work has a holiday tradition called the twelve pounds of Christmas. For twelve days there’s a potluck every work day leading up to Christmas, except for one day off for the annual holiday party (which is a buffet.)

My work is organized into different bureaus, and each day a bureau brings in food for the entire office. So basically you bring food in one day and chow down for the rest of the days. For some reason this year it seems almost like a competition, with each bureau trying to outdo each other.

The potlucks used to be held in the upstairs meeting room, but for some reason this year they moved them to the downstairs meeting room, which is at most ten feet from my cubicle. Willpower comes a lot easier when you have to climb a flight of stairs to see the food. This year the food is basically in front of my face, and I can constantly smell it, so willpower is in short supply.

Yet somehow, up until this week I was able to stay away, just nibbling here and there. But on Monday things changed when the potluck got cranked up another notch. Somebody started cooking bacon in the meeting room. The smell and sound of sizzling bacon was intoxicating. They should have laws against cooking bacon in the office because I’m pretty sure productivity drops to zero when the aroma of cooked bacon wafts through the office.

Today things got even crazier. Somebody brought a chocolate fountain in. Best invention ever. I started off slowly, eating a few pieces of fruit dipped in chocolate. But later somebody brought in doughnuts, marshmallows and rice krispy squares. “I’m already in this, might as well go big…” I thought, as I drenched a doughnut in chocolatey goodness.

I guess by go big, I meant stomach go big.