I'm done with organizing the lunches

At my office, there's a mix of people who bring lunches from home or who go out for lunch. For years now, we would order lunch on Fridays to be delivered or I'd run an pick up a big order for everyone in the office so we could eat together in the conference room and catch up with each other. We switched it to Thursdays when one of the people changed her schedule so that she never works on Fridays now.

However, as of this week, I'm done. I'm done with organizing, taking the orders, calling it in, handling all the money, picking it up, etc. I'm done with all of it. First of all, the lunches have deteriorated to just being an ordering/delivery service. We used to sit together and talk while we ate. We'd catch up on life events, family, friends, etc. However, over the last six months of so, people have started just picking up their food and going back to their offices without hanging around to chat!

Another office tradition revolving around our lunches: Anytime it's someone's birthday, I always organize lunch for that day (or a day close to it). Sometimes I even make sure we have cake or cupcakes (homemade or store bought).

My birthday was last Saturday, but because I was really busy at work last Thursday and Friday, we pushed my birthday lunch to be on this past Monday. Since I'm usually the one who handles all the lunches, fine... I took everyone's order and collected the money. Usually, everyone usually chips in a couple extra bucks to cover the cost of the birthday boy/girl's lunch. So, of the four people who ate lunch with me on Monday...

1. One person gave me the exact amount for his lunch, not one dollar extra. He's the one who can most afford it and the one who is constantly offering to or actually buying my assistant's lunch throughout the year.

2. One person offered and actually gave me $2 dollars to contribute towards my lunch.

3. One person said he'd contribute towards my lunch, but then realized that he didn't have enough cash on him to cover his own lunch and had to borrow money from person #4 who...

4. Also said she'd contribute towards my lunch, but didn't have enough for both her lunch and to let person #3 borrow money, so I ended up putting in money to help cover the deficit.

Both #3 and #4 said they'd pay me back. So far, nothing.

So, it was my birthday lunch, which person #2 contributed $2 towards and I *still* paid $8 out of my pocket. The total cost of my lunch was $8.50!

Do I care about $8 out of my pocket? No, it's not the money. It's the fact that it's CONSTANTLY like this. People don't have enough money, they'll pay me back. No one else wants to go pick up the lunches. If I weren't the one spearheading the Thursday lunch, I don't think it would exist. So I'm letting it die. I'm tired of getting stiffed for a few dollars each week and not being appreciated.

When did I decide I was *done* with this? When person #1 came to me yesterday and said, "Is anyone ordering food for Thursday lunch?" and I said, "Nope, I'm not and I'm done with it." I hadn't consciously thought about it before he asked the question. It just popped out of my mouth. This person never brings his lunch and hates to drive anywhere for lunch, so everyday he asks if anyone's going out to pick up lunch so that he can give them money to pick him up lunch too. He doesn't want a Thursday lunch, he just wants food. He's one of the ones that gets his food and disappears into his office. I'm not his lackey.

So, after the fiasco with my birthday on Monday and him not offering one single dollar, I decided that is it. I'm through. They can all take care of ordering their own damn lunches. At this point, I don't want to eat with them.

First eHarmony Date

Well, I went on my first eHarmony date on Saturday. It was somewhat mixed. I thought he seemed really nice and cute, but after talking for 2 1/2 hours, I asked him something like "If you had kids, would you want to raise them as Catholic?" and he said, "Well, I already have two kids, but they live in Texas."

What?!

Theoretically, eHarmony has a way of filtering people with kids vs. not having kids, but the way they phrase it is pretty tricky! They ask each member how many children they have living full-time in the home. Then they ask if you're willing to accept being matched with members who have children living full-time in the home, to which I replied, "NO." So, since his kids don't LIVE with him, he marked "Zero kids living at home" and then they matched him up with me because I don't want to date people who have kids.

This is irritating because I don't want to date anyone who has ANY kids. I don't care where they live or how old they are. I'd guess that most guys with kids would mark "Zero" on that question because unless they live in another state (like this guy), they probably only live part-time with him, not full-time. They should have an option where you mark that you either have or don't have kids. I'm going to have to state on my profile that I don't want to date anyone who even has kids, so that the guys can "close" our match if they have children.

I'm going to send eHarmony an email about this. My first date was essentially a waste of both of our time because he has kids already. If I had known that, I never would've done all the back-and-forth questions with him and then spent Saturday afternoon with him. He was very nice, but not a match and I would've known that from the beginning had I known he already had kids.

Laundry Etiquette

I don't know if there's some kind of rule about this sort of thing, but I got into a very heated discussion with my friend about laundry etiquette. We both live in small apartment complexes that have laundry rooms that you share with everyone else in the building.

His complaint? He thinks it's rude for people to move your stuff out of the dryer when it's still wet and put it in a ball in your laundry basket. Not when the dryer bell goes off, but when it's been sitting there overnight into the next morning. He thinks they should kind of lay the clothes in his basket, not just bunch them up in there. According to him, the clothes get more wrinkled if you just throw them in a ball in the basket.

My complaint? People that leave their laundry in the dryer! If he really cared about how wrinkly his clothes were, he'd get them out of the dryer when the buzzer goes off. I know I've lost track of time or just plain forgotten about my laundry while I'm doing it. I don't get upset if I go to the laundry room and someone has moved my stuff so they can finish their laundry. I feel bad that I forgot and made them do extra work! That's one of the main reasons I use a timer while doing laundry. So I don't forget to go down there and switch my laundry or get it out of the dryer.

He actually said that it was "inconsiderate" of people to just dump his clothes in the basket. I love my friend, but how can he really think that?