First some context about my eating habits: Once as a child my mother put the Tupperware container containing a block of cheese into my schoolbag instead of the one containing my lunch. I thought nothing of it. I just ate the block of cheese. “My lunch today is a block of cheese,” I thought. It was only years later I realised that this was probably a mistake.
I am an unreflective eater. I inhale food much like whales go about eating plankton. I’m not proud of this. Feck it. Yes I am. I’m just better at eating than the rest of you - I eat quickly and efficiently, glugging down my required nutrients before a roving gang or predator can take it from me. I like all food. The only food I don’t like are pineapples, which are weird.
Once in a restaurant I asked the waiter for a fork with which to eat my banoffi pie. When he returned a moment later the pie was gone. Hah! I needed no fork. “Jesus,” said the waiter. “I feel like I should put up a plaque.”
Was he taken-aback? Was he impressed? Was he depressed? I don’t know. “Another,” I said.
Soon after my wife first met me, she recalls how we were eating lunch in the college canteen. I opened my sandwich. She looked away for a second. When she turned back the sandwich was gone. She tells this story to friends with an air of disapproval. I sit beside her looking pleased with myself, because I win at eating, but also because if she overlooked my eating habits that means I must have been pretty hot.
Once upon a time I could eat all I wanted while retaining the body of a young god. Nowadays, I have the body of an old god, possibly Bacchus or Odin or maybe the Egyptian one with the crocodile head.
I’d love to have a crocodile head, those big snapping jaws and no gag-reflex. Think how good I’d be at eating then?
In the Irish Times building I eat lunch every day at around 12. I like to eat in the canteen before the lunchtime rush. I usually order a brown roll which boffins tell me are healthier than white rolls, and I ask the nice man to fill it with three things. I vary these things a bit because I’m a maverick. This is also when I usually read the paper, covering it and myself with crumbs. When my nephew eats, he dons a sort of all-over eating smock. I think it should be okay for grown adults to wear these too. As it is, I have to cry “Don’t look at me!” to passing colleagues as I cover myself with food. “Is Patrick weeping?” they ask.
But if they look closely they’ll see I’m not weeping. I’m laughing, laughing with joy, because, as I think I’ve established, I’m better at eating than everyone else.
