How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

It's time to form a committee to plan our annual Christmas Luncheon, the one thing that passes for a social event at my workplace in which we are all invited to whip up a dish of our favorite holiday recipes -- concoctions that call for at least one can of Campbell's soup, a cup of chopped onion, and a "mystery" ingredient passed down from generation to generation.

I was committee chair last year. It's an honor that is supposed to rotate from one department to another, yet this week I was asked to be chair once again. I was flattered and horrified at the same time. Eager to push the responsibility onto someone else, I stammered, "W..w..what about the chair rotation precedent?" The white hot spotlight of responsibility moved from me and focused on another.

Don't get me wrong; I like parties. My favorite time of year is October when I get to plan and execute our annual pumpkin carving party that once got to be so popular among my friends and family, I had to start limiting invitations. I've served on the Christmas Luncheon Committee (CLC) a number of times in various capacities: decorating, clean-up, music, set-up, meat delivery. There seem to be more rules and regulations involved in the planning than there is in a peace treaty negotiated by the United Nations between North Korea and their terrified neighbors to the south. It's a heck of a lot of work, but the food is always good. Sometimes there are complaints, but most people appreciate the endeavor.

Serving as chair, however, is another matter. As Ben Parker famously said, "With great power comes great responsibility." The truth is, I failed in my duties as committee chair. I lost the meat.

There, I said it. Even now it hurts to think about the eager faces, plates in hand, opening the refrigerator the day after last year's Christmas Luncheon to find a foil-topped tray absolutely bereft of smoked briskit and oven-roasted turkey. The day before, I'd watched as committee members consolidated the two trays of meat into one giant vat of cooked flesh easily weighing 10 pounds, licking their lips at the thought of the leftover feast awaiting us all. Alas, it was not to be. By noon the next day, the meat was gone, leaving behind only the faint aroma of barbeque sauce and gravy.

There were plenty of suspects, but few clues. Co-workers were considered and then ruled out, until only a tiny handful of possible culprits remained. There was no proof, so only suspicions remain. The Great Meat Mystery of 2005 remains unsolved to this day.

But I won't give up. As O.J. Simpson famously promised to find "the real killer or killers" of his ex-wife and her friend, so have I vowed to find out who took the meat (that is, unless I can get a publishing deal for a book I'd call If I Took It, a purely hypothetical exercise in which I describe how I would have pulled off the meat heist).

Not that I'm admitting anything, mind you.