Where’s My Lunch?

About two months before I left the military, I was studying for my real estate license.  The date was scheduled for me to take the test.  I made arrangements to catch a flight on a C-130 from Dyess AFB, TX to Travis AFB in Fairfield, California so I could sit for the exam.    I was at base operations that morning for the flight.  I reasoned that the flight would take approximately 3 hours so I should be landing around 10AM with the time difference.  Everything seemed to be under control.  I did make one big mistake and it was largely due to my inexperience.  I did not make arrangements for an in-flight lunch.  Honestly, I didn’t think it would be necessary since the flight was only going to take about three hours.  You know what they say about assuming things.  Well, I was wrong about the length of the flight and obviously that meant I was also wrong in not ordering a lunch.  I heard later that you always made arrangements for a lunch because you could never predict how long the flight would be.   It turned out that this flight was going to be part of a navigator training program and they would be running a number of navigator legs, as they were called, and the flight ended up lasting nine hours.  After about five hours in the air, I was getting pretty hungry.  I didn’t say anything, but it was a bummer to see everyone else on the plane eating their lunches.  One of the other people on the flight ask me if I would like to have a lunch.  I quickly replied that I would love to have one.  I assumed that it was an extra.  I finished the lunch and the only thing left to consume was an apple.   About 15 minutes later the pilot came back into the main compartment where I was and he was visibly upset.  He wanted to know where his lunch was.   He really wanted to know who ate his lunch.  I was silent.  Everyone else, thank God was silent also.  Apparently, I had eaten his lunch.  I didn’t give it much thought.  I guess I must have assumed that it was an extra lunch and certainly not the pilot’s lunch.  It could have been someone else’s lunch.  Although I am sure that the pilot didn’t fail to make arrangements for his in-flight lunch.  I owe a lot to everyone’s silence.  I don’t know what might have happened if I was identified as the person who consumed his lunch.  I also doubt that my speech on the 42 days to starve to death wouldn’t have meant much to the pilot.  He was hungry and angry and I doubt that he would have forgiven my actions.  I thought about offering him the apple, but the less said the better in my mind.  I don’t know if that pilot is still around and if he remembers that flight, but I certainly do and maybe after all these years he could find a way to forgive me.  We landed at Travis after nine hours in the air and I lost my lunch on the tarmac.  I did not feel well at all.  I think I was just on the plane too long and maybe it was poetic justice that I was sick to my stomach.  I did sit for the exam and passed it.  The flight home was uneventful and unlike the flight there I did make arrangements for an in-flight lunch.  As I recall I did not eat it.  This flight was only three hours long and I didn’t need to eat.  I remember how uncomfortable I felt after realizing that I had eaten the pilot’s lunch.  Maybe someone was pranking the pilot by offering his lunch to me.  Whatever it was it bothered me immensely.  I look back and wish I had refused that lunch.  I always felt guilty about it.