Is there a sadder lunch than a Lean Cuisine heated up in the office microwave? Rubbery chicken, limp veggies, and congealed sauce lay atop a squishy bed of rice, and the woman in line behind you, leading the queue of sad secretaries holding their own boxes of nukeable sludge, has the nerve to say “That smells good.” No, it doesn’t. You don’t need her pity sniff. I don’t care if that plastic shell holds Chicken Alfredo or Santa Fe Rice & Beans, every Lean Cuisine smells the same–like failure covered in lo-cal gravy.

You run back to your desk concealing your pathetic lunch in the crook of your arm so no one sees what you have in there, like you just birthed a cyclops baby and you need to get it to the convent doorstep before the church bells start ringing.

The worst part, of course, is that after you eat your warmed over little pile of sustenance, You. Are. Still. Hungry. Seriously, did you just eat moist air? Why does it feel like nothing went into your belly? I haven’t been this disappointed since the Lost finale. Why buy them, you are probably asking. Because I am lazy, and they are $3.