THE SEARCH FOR THE “PERFECT” LUNCHBOX

Some men have devoted their life to searching for hidden cities and others have searched for cures, I, on the other hand, have spent a considerable amount of my time in search of – drum roll – the perfect lunchbox (this is not a euphemism for anything worth sniggering about by the way). Now you might think this a frivolous pursuit for a grown man to engage in but I believe I will not, no cannot finally get into the habit of bringing nutritious packed lunches to work without that essential piece of equipment.

At first this quest was hindered by a vague notion of what that lunchbox might look like and what its function actually was – not to mention volume, shape and durability because it would be on duty five days a week all year round. The journey took me through repurposed plastic boxes from Chinese meals (too flimsy), through microwaveable plates with lids (too ‘meals on wheels’ looking) and past heavy duty and larger boxes with clip down lids (clips broke). We even stopped off at beaker shaped salad storage containers with built in forks and a box with a handle AND clip down lid that could have stored a week’s rations.

Some purchases – and even gifts – were quite successful, but none fulfilled the developing specifications required to be deemed the “Perfect Lunchbox”. Then one day a couple of weeks ago our GUC #6. – who happens to work with me – turned up to work with the Holy Grail of lunchboxes. I clapped eyes on this icon of plastic perfection and just knew my quest was over. All I had to do was find out where she bought it and my search of many years was over. She couldn’t remember where she got it! After a serious brainstorming session it was established there were only two or three possible locations and so we set forth to seek the now clearly identified Perfect Lunchbox.

They were nowhere to be found. Being the well brought up young lady that she is, #6 took pity on the old man and donated her own Perfect Lunchbox to the cause, thereby ending the quest (I put up a struggle but in reality, like Gollum’s Precious, I had intended to spirit it away when she wasn’t looking mwhahaha!).

By the way, the Perfect Lunchbox turned out to actually be a vegetable steamer for the microwave, so no wonder I couldn’t find it! What do you mean that disqualifies it as a lunchbox….?

UPDATE: I finally found The Perfect Lunchbox supplier and bought one for GUC#6. Happy ending 🙂