It was a Friday afternoon. I was busy reading papers when my stomach growled. “I must be really hungry,” I thought. I would usually take my lunch box out at this point, but it was one of those days when I decided to eat out. There is a small cafeteria next to my lab building, a few steps away.

I grab my card and head out. It is warm outside, and I immediately feel exhausted. Anyhow, I have to go get my lunch. There is a self-ordering machine at the counter. Thank God! I do not have the bandwidth for any human interaction. I quickly walked towards the machine, and the staff who wasn’t even bothered suddenly looked at me and smiled. He greeted me cheerfully, “Hello, how are you doing?” I gave a robotic reply, with as much smile as I could muster, “I am fine, how are you?”…and he immediately followed it with a “good.” I quickly ordered my hot sandwich and looked for a place to wait.

There were a couple of empty chairs, and I sit down and try to channel as much energy as I can for the next interaction when he calls my name, and I will have to interact with him again. A few minutes later, he shouts a name. Not me. I keep waiting.

As I look around this cafeteria, I realize that not many people are actually eating here. They are mostly chatting or working on their laptops. I think for a second if I should eat here, but then I decide not to. Maybe I can eat outside, but it is warm and there might be many crawling bugs. Just the other day when I sat with my lab mates outside to enjoy my lunch, one bug made it all the way to my head. There were some screams heard later.

As I ponder my place to eat, I hear someone call, “hot sandwich” from behind the counter. I get up immediately and pace myself towards the counter. I see that there is a box with a name tag and a receipt on it, and the staff smiling and standing next to it. I smile back and reach out for the box, waiting for him to hand it over to me. He says something, and I thought I heard, “Are you happy?” I say, “sorry,” and he asks again, “Are you happy?” A lot of things come to my head within a span of a few seconds. Am I happy? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Maybe slightly. Who are you to ask me that? Why would you ask me that? What should I say? And I immediately say, “yes!” He asks me yet again; I say yes.

I saw some sort of disbelief on his face before he handed me my sandwich. As I walked towards the exit, thinking about what just happened, I looked down and saw something written on the name tag. It is ABI. ABI-ABI-I panic. What was I doing taking Abi’s sandwich! Ohh, the embarrassment didn’t take long to seep in. If I had a mirror in front of me, I would have looked red and purple with shame. What could have made me think that someone would care to even ask me if I am happy! Obviously not! Why would someone at the cafeteria, baking and cooking, care if I am happy! Was it a question that my soul was trying to ask me instead? Was my mind playing tricks? Abi must be happy, but I was certainly not at this point.

I turn around, dash towards the counter and keep the box of shame back where it was before. The staff peers at me through the tiny window of the kitchen. I feel the stare and judgment. I look down. I hear a few grumbles as he says something to the other staff. She comes to the counter and completely ignores me. I want to apologize, explain what happened, wash my sins. No one pays heed. After I stand as a picture would stand on the wall of shame, for five lengthy minutes or so, she asks me, “hot sandwich?” I say or rather make a sound, hmmm, as I am now scared of the yes word. She grabs the same box, Abi’s box of hot sandwich, peels off the name tag along with the receipt and hands it back to me. The very box that was not mine to take is now rightfully mine.

I look at my box, turn around and get out. The embarrassment was still there. The longing to put my case right was still there. I still wanted him to hear my side of the story. But, I was long gone now. With my hot sandwich that was not mine to take in the first place. Was I happy? Still debatable but I knew for sure that I was not going to step into that place for another month at least, which made me smile.