6 office lunches to guarantee no co-workers bother you on your lunch break

It's a tale as old as fax machines: you sit down in the office break-room for a well-earned midday meal, when Darren from I.T. appears, leading with his nose like Toucan Sam.

"Something smells yumsies!" announces Darren. And he's right. It is yumsies, you fool. Your delicious homemade chili has led him right to you. You'd give Darren all your food if he would spare you the details of which kata he learned last night in karate class, but that's not going to happen. Darren must talk about karate.

Better to avoid this situation in the first place by preparing these quick and easy lunches that repel any possibility of social interaction.

1. Tuna from a can, eaten off a butter knife

The beauty of gorging yourself on raw tuna is that it sends a strong message: "I am one step away from the feral behaviour of Hugh Glass in The Revenant, which means I most certainly don't want to hear about your new adult colouring book."

Additionally, you can sprinkle the leftover tuna-tinged water in a small circle around you, creating an invisible barrier of smell that will instantly lower the odds of Fred from management telling you about his new cycling route. You may ask, "But Joel, why a butter knife?"

Because you deserve it!

2. Dickensian-style gruel

Unless your co-worker is Oliver Twist, he'll surely balk at the off-grey slop traditionally served to inmates and schoolchildren from poor neighbourhoods in the United States.

As a bonus, leftover gruel can be used to seal up holes you punched in the drywall the last time Erica from accounting burned your whole lunch hour explaining how Bitcoins work.

3. Jar of mayonnaise, Pooh-style

This is a fun and simple recipe that will ensure Monica from marketing will never again show you photos from the time she snorkeled next to a turtle. Simply purchase a jumbo container of mayonnaise and paw it out of the jar like beloved literary simpleton Winnie the Pooh.

Make sure to create loud smacking noises as you suck the detritus off your fingers, then wipe 'em down on your red shirt. Bonus marks if you leave your pants at home.

4. Pages from your self-published novel

With a little bit of cumin for flavour, scarfing page after page of your self-published sci-fi romance novel will certainly clear the room of any Jeffs from HR who were hoping to explain why they're embarking on a social media cleanse.

If co-workers aren't grossed out by the fact that you eat paper, they will surely give you a wide berth when they realize you may pressure them to buy one of your thousand unsold copies of A.I. and the Cute Guy.

5. Any and all foods served to Indiana Jones in The Temple of Doom

Remember when they just decided to go one-hundo-P gross-out mode in the second Indiana Jones movie, and everyone ate monkey brains and weird insects? You can do that too.

Simply collect some old wasps and a couple of stiff mice from the nearest Coffee Time alley. Chow down, confident in the fact that unless your company employs Short Round, you won't have to field any complaints from Ruth in payroll about how warm it's been this fall.  

6. Darren

Why not nourish yourself and make an example of Darren at the same time? Simply lure Darren into the street with a coveted green belt for his karate gi, then strike him with your car.

While I wouldn't normally recommend cannibalism, openly eating a co-worker is a good way to land in jail, where cafeterias are notoriously anti-social. I hear they even put cannibals in solitary, and that means exactly zero chats with Eddie the Shiv about the prison showers' poor water pressure.

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