I can't get no satisfaction

Day: Thursday
Place: Work
Time: 5 p.m.

The culprit: Thai Kitchen's Pad Thai "noodle cart"

It's been a busy day -- so much so I didn't have time to forage for chocolate, as usual. So when I finally got around to opening my lunchbag (actually a recycled Sephora bag), I had high hopes that whatever I ate would be sustaining. I had two options: Campbell's Soup at Hand cream of broccoli, which tastes kind of like ass but is at least hot, and the pad thai, which I figured would have the added bonus of being mildly spicy.

I chose the pad thai, and got a hit of spice, but also gummy noodles, insubstantial sauce and a dearth of peanuts. I won't lie: I ate most of it. But it didn't come near to filling that gaping midday need.

I ignored the cream of broccoli and headed down to my local Vend-o-land, where I hoped to find something sweet but not ghastly, cheap but not indigestion-inducing. Unfortunately, the ice cream machine has been out of service for weeks, so my fallback ice cream sandwich -- which deserves an entry of its own -- was out of reach.

So I bought a 50-cent bag of Herr's Honey BBQ Potato Chips.

Lemme tell ya: They were gross. Generally I'm cool with barbecue chips. Lay's does a particularly good version: crispy, salty and tart-savory enough to pleasantly singe the inside of my mouth. These, however, were awful. Stale (despite the July expiration date), sickeningly sweet and generally nauseating.

Maybe it's time for me to lay off the convenience foods, y'all.