I am not engaged. It's just my tuna.

Although for half a second at the lunch table at work today, it was almost the rumor going around. Allow me to explain.

A bunch of us often eat lunch at work together. Sometimes outside at a table we borrow from the restaurant next door and sometimes inside at the conference table. Either way, hilarity generally ensues. I mean, anytime you have a bunch of people who have been cooped up in a room in the same seat for more than 4 hours who, while doing their other work, have had too much time to think about things to talk about at lunch it's gonna be an event. Usually it's the Yankees. In fact, there is a very specific line being drawn between the Marketing and the Development departments because Development is all about the Yankees while Marketing hearts the Mets like no other. I am a Mets fan. I am also in the Marketing department. It's all very simple logic.

In any case, there I was eating my tuna sandwhich and talking to Angry Squirrel and The New Girl about how my mother woke up early to make me tuna (she's suffering from empty nest syndrome since my sister left for college). Angry Squirrel thinks that I should relish in the fact that my mom wants to make me lunch because I have the rest of my life to be independent. This is where it gets weird.

No one knows how or why or what lines could have possibly gotten crossed, but somehow The Tool thought he heard that I was engaged. Here is a reproduction of the exact conversation, including my inner thoughts which will help you to recreate the entire situation. Inner thoughts are in parentheses:

Hesper: So yeah, she got up and made me tuna.
Angry Squirrel: Well, you know, it's really nice of her.
The New Girl: Yeah, your mom seems sweet.
Angry Squirrel: I mean, I say let her do it; you have the rest of your life to be independent.
The Tool: Wait, you're engaged? Did that happen this last weekend?
Hesper: Uh, what? (who said engaged?) I'm not engaged (to WHO would I even be engaged???)
The Tool: I thought someone said you were engaged...?
The Gopher: Wait, you got engaged?
Hesper: Whoa, no! (All I need is an office party where I have to explain where I'm not only not engaged, but also not even in a relationship...oh god...there will be cake...)
Angry Squirrel: Who said engaged?
The Tool: I thought someone said engaged, but then I remember that last week she was talking about some relationship thing...
Angry Squirrel: Yeah, we were talking about her tuna.
Hesper: (Oh, what now? And did he seem upset that I was engaged? Maybe The Baker is right and he does have the hots for me...)

So now, of course, I'm blushing because I'm embarassed for The Tool that he would even mistake that so badly. I mean, tuna...? Seriously? No one even mentioned engagement. The only thing I could think of later was that he misheard what we were talking about when Angry Squirrel said something about me being independent.

This is a great example of why I love Angry Squirrel though. I mean, only she would have the guts to smile at him and say, "We were talking about her tuna" in such a way that really said, "Um, I don't know what you think you heard, but you're clearly an idiot."

So the thing about this little lunch table is that people seem eager to jump on the gossip bandwagon. And there isn't really much gossip. We're not a big office. And if I were engaged, I don't think I would be able to leave it on the downlow for almost an entire week. That would be a shrieking Monday morning in Angry Squirrel's office. Not a tuna-based sidenote over the local newspaper's sports coverage while The Giggler and The Gopher discuss who the starting pitcher is for the upcoming game.