It was supposed to be a table for four. Instead, today’s Lunch became a beta lunch for two: the Mayor, Frank, standing bravely alone at the table like “a roast pork on a spit,” and Fruitloop, Janita, armed with questions, laughter, and absolutely no mercy.

Rosii overslept after her phone ran out of battery, Natalie is busy for the next few meetings, and the Serbian guest remained somewhere between good intentions and actual arrival. So the Mayor and Fruitloop did what Lunch people do best: they winged it.

The future arrived first.

The Mayor wondered whether anyone would want to be frozen and revived centuries later. Fruitloop gave a firm no. Not because the future is scary, exactly, but because waking up without family, friends, or a support network sounded less like science fiction and more like emotional admin. Also, technology changes fast enough already. She remembers dial-up internet, fax machines, big televisions, libraries for school projects, and a world where Google did not immediately answer everything.

From there, the conversation wandered into AI and future jobs. Frank predicted that many information-based jobs—data processing, analysis, office work, marketing, and creative support—may change dramatically or disappear much sooner than twenty years. He and Fruitloop are already using AI in their own strange little ecosystem: campaigns, planning, cartoons, writing, and the general pushing-forward of things with no army of employees behind them.

But not everything can be automated. Craftspeople, bakers, plumbers, electricians, chefs, and hands-on workers may become the heroes of the future. Until the robots learn to fix a leaking pipe, humanity still has a chance.

Then came the darker side of modern technology: spam, trolls, fake delivery messages, strange WhatsApps, private numbers leaving Chinese voice notes, Spanish rental emails, and the nostalgic memory of the classic “you inherited $25 million” scam. Trust, Frank reflected, is becoming harder to build when every useful communication channel is also full of digital nonsense.

Naturally, the only sensible solution was aliens.

Fruitloop asked what Frank’s job title would be if he were paid to speak to aliens. After some wandering through journalism, NASA budgets, Martian PayPal, and the Bank of Mars, he eventually landed on something close to “foreign alien correspondent,” before downgrading himself beautifully to “Number One Looney Bin Man.”

Fruitloop, meanwhile, wanted to ask aliens the practical questions: How do they breathe? Do they have gravity? Clean water? Sustainable electricity? Do they own a magic stone that powers the whole house forever? Preferably a colour-changing one, possibly pink, depending on mood.

There was also talk of Elio, Resident Alien, humanoid robots, driverless cars, Knight Rider, and whether future cars will politely take us to the supermarket while calling us good-looking. As one does.

And then, because Lunch refuses to stay on one planet for too long, dragons entered the room.

If Frank had to train dragons, he would need a fireproof suit and far better diplomatic skills. Fruitloop brought in Game of Thrones, dragon eggs, ash, the Mother of Dragons, and the important difference between receiving chicken eggs and receiving dragon eggs from your husband. One is breakfast. The other is a warning.

By the end, Rosii had missed the chaos, Natalie was still off-planet with her busy schedule, and Frank and Fruitloop had successfully prepared themselves for next week’s topic: playful thinking. Which, frankly, they had already practised with honours.

The meeting closed not with a grand conclusion, but with dinner advice. Potato peels, it turns out, can be mixed with oil, garlic, herbs, and spices, then thrown into the air fryer until crispy. Future technology may replace jobs, aliens may have magic electricity stones, and dragons may require careful negotiation—but crispy potato peels might still save tomorrow night’s dinner.

And maybe that is the true Lunch philosophy: when the guests don’t arrive, the phone batteries die, the future looks strange, and the aliens are possibly already disguised as doctors, you keep talking. You keep laughing. You keep winging it.

Preferably with snacks.