A Question of Taste...

I have a question about etiquette since, being a pirate, I am not very qualified in that area. I have noticed that my co-workers seem to have no compunction about commenting loudly about whatever it is I decide to eat for lunch. Isn’t that what’s commonly known as rude? Wouldn’t Miss Manners tell them to fuck off? I actually don’t take my lunches in the breakroom anymore because I got sick of the “and what are you eating today?” comments, but even when I am hiding in my office I get a lot of “oh migod, you’re going to eat that?” And it’s not like I eat big bowls of live worms, or anything. I eat leftovers, I eat sandwiches, I eat sushi from the grocery store across the street.

Here are some memorable things that have been said about food that I am in the process of eating:

“I don’t know how you can eat that many vegetables at the same time.” (re: leftover stew with green beans, cauliflower and carrots)
“I just have to ask…what is that?” (re: oatmeal leftover from breakfast that I was heating up as a midmorning snack.)
“The only vegetables I can eat are canned green beans, I just can’t stand fresh vegetables.” (re: a large salad)
“What are you some kind of health nut?” (re: an apple)
“I can’t stand that oriental stuff.” (re: take-out Pad Thai)
“Is that that stuff with raw fish in it?” (re: grocery store sushi, I decided not to engage in a discussion of the differences between sushi and sashimi)
“And just what are you eating today?” (re: Ramen, during a lean time, with some broccoli cut up in it because plain Ramen is too boring to contemplate.)
“Whole wheat bread makes me think of cardboard.” (re: a sandwich on homemade bread)

And here are some things that I have restrained from saying regarding things that my co-workers are eating.

“Canned peaches and cottage cheese? What are you on the preservatives and whey diet?”
“Could you please go and eat that beef-stew-in-a-can someplace else? The smell makes me want to puke.”
“Perhaps if you didn’t eat Burger King every day you wouldn’t be morbidly obese.”
“What is that, and iceburg lettuce and mayonnaise salad?”
“Cheese cubes out of a bag does not a balanced meal make.”
“I realize the cardboard box called that a salsbury stake, but it looks like the accidentally packaged up an old boot sole….of course after being microwaved for 12 minutes I suppose anything would look like an old boot sole.”
“You can’t possibly find that appetizing.”
“Have you ever thought of eating anything that might be classified as food?”
“I didn’t know they could make plastic that chewable. If you spit it out now, you could eat it again tomorrow.”

So why am I, the pirate queen, being the polite one here? Why must I sit on my tongue day after day and listen to how people think the food I’m eating is disgusting…while cramming their bodies with the most unappetizing, not to mention unhealthy crap ever to come out of the freezer section?

Sigh, I suppose I should be lashed to the mizzen mast and forced to eat fruit cocktail out of a can until I repent my polite midwestern ways.

Ragnar!