Somewhere in the last fifteen years, lunch stopped being a meal and became a scheduling problem. It is now something you “fit in,” “grab,” or “skip and push to 3.” The language alone should alarm us. Nobody says they are going to “grab” dinner with their family. Nobody “fits in” a birthday.
Forty-five minutes is not a long time. It is, however, long enough to eat something that requires a plate, read four pages of a book, and look out a window at a tree. It is long enough to remember that you are a person with a body and not a calendar with a digestive system.
The case for the 45-minute lunch is not a case for sloth. It is a case for boundaries. The meal is one of the few remaining parts of the working day that cannot be improved by a notification. You cannot optimize chewing. You can only do it, or not.
Employers will tell you that a shorter lunch is a perk, because you get to leave earlier. This is arithmetic in the service of nothing. Leaving at 4:45 instead of 5:00 is not freedom. It is the same day, arranged slightly differently, so that you never have to stop.
I am aware that many people do not get 45 minutes. Nurses, drivers, parents, anyone working two jobs — for them the lunch break is already a rumor. That is precisely the point. If the people with the most control over their schedules cannot protect a single unhurried meal, what chance does anyone else have?
So: sit down. Use a plate. Do not answer the message. The republic will survive 45 minutes without you. It has survived worse.
