The mysterious case of the missing package

I have a bit on a conundrum that I need help with. I need some advice.

This week, my wife has started making me a packed lunch to take to work.

This may sound like a fairly innocuous statement to you but it has left me with a bit of an issue to sort out. I can sense a storm brewing and need some tips on how to avoid it.

We have been married for fourteen years and I would guess that in that time my wife, Jo, has made my work-lunch fourteen times. Pack-ups for a working husband are just not something she believes in. 

Apparently, I am also an adult and perfectly capable of making myself a sandwich.

Apparently.

She will also, quite ruthlessly, point out that in all of those years I have probably made our evening meal about fourteen times. Why she has to make such a fuss about counting these pieces of trivia I will never know.

Anyway.

The real point is that my wife works as do I and no, of course I don’t expect my pack-ups being made for me – I’m not a child. I have often made nice salads or wraps for my wife to take to work with her though, because I know she appreciates these things. I’m not a complete idiot. It came, therefore, as a bit of a surprise, early this Monday morning, when I discovered a little box with my name on it in the fridge.

Jo had made my lunch.

I thought back and remembered, vaguely, a conversation that we had shared a few days earlier. Jo had been asking me about my lunch habits and I had successfully fended her off by mumbling something about salad. She had given me a hard stare that suggested, perhaps, that she hadn’t entirely believed me. The conversation had gone on for a while but to be honest I’d switched off and stopped listening. I’m confident I heard her mention the words ‘sandwiches’, ‘diet’ and ‘healthy’ a couple of times though in what context I’m not really certain. Eventually, I noticed that things had gone quiet. I did one final ‘auto-agreement’ and went back to fretting about whether or not the dream I’d had the previous night, about Paralympic synchronised swimmers, had just plain been wrong.

With a smile, I grabbed my newly discovered lunch box and skipped off for my train.

At lunch time I opened it up and worked my way through its contents.

A chicken wrap, made from the leftover meat from Sunday’s roast – fantastic!

A vaguely chocolate flavoured oat based bar – quite nice, why not?

A Satsuma. Lovely, who doesn’t like a Satsuma?

A Tomato? Okay….  Can you eat those raw? I’ll check on Google later.

Hang on? Where are the crisps?

Bless her. Jo’s lack of pack-up making experience had led her to making a fundamental faux-pas on the crisps front. She’d accidentally forgotten to put them in the box! I laughed at the silliness of the blunder.

“Oh you beautiful, silly, funny woman.” I giggled.

With an amused shake of my head, I made my way to the vending machine and bought a pack to fill the gap that their absence had left. I decided it best not to tell Jo this as I didn’t want to make a fuss. After all she had gone to such effort for which I was truly grateful. I didn’t want to upset her by highlighting her mistake. 

“She’ll just be too embarrassed” I decided, graciously.

The problem is that she keeps on making the same gaff. Tuesday’s box was exactly the same story, as is today’s. Not only is there no packet of crisps but today, she appears to have forgotten the vaguely chocolate flavoured oat based bar too! I mean, I know she is tired in the evenings and the kids are a bit of a distraction, but she really does need to try and concentrate a little harder. It isn’t very economical for me to be buying these things individually from the vending machine every day, is it?

So what do you think I should do?

Should I point it out to her? Have a quiet word and try and let her know that I understand it was just an accident? She has put so much effort in though. She’ll be gutted.

Should I say nothing but just happen to walk by as she is making them, maybe I could helpfully offer to fetch the crisps FOR HER? What do you think? We don’t have to have a discussion about it – we can all just pretend not to have noticed.

Or, lastly, should I try making the sandwiches for the both of us tonight? Maybe, if I make her pack-up for her, when she opens it up she’ll just be nudged a little? She’ll see her crisps and realise her own mistake but without there being any public fuss about it. She can just confidently move on and pretend it never happened.

What do you think I should do?

What would you do?