“Now you’ve done it,” Troy said as he and Max worked their way down the serving line.
          “What are you talking about?” Max loaded his tray with Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a slice of coconut cake—choices that partially explained why he approached his mid-thirties ten pounds overweight. 
          “Letting some radical feminist who isn’t even employed here write policy for this company.”
          “Oh, you mean Grant.”
          “Yeah. Grant.” Troy got sweet tea and a dinner roll to supplement whatever was in the lunch bag on his tray. “Apt name, huh? Hidden by the flaxen hair and womanly face there’s a hard-drinking, scorched-earth general on the lookout for an opportunity to whop somebody.”
          They paid for their food and emerged from the serving line. Troy set his tray on a nearby counter, took a plate from the bag and lifted the lid to see what his wife, Patty, had made him for lunch.
          Since early in their marriage, she had painlessly controlled his caloric intake with his favorite home-cooked Southern foods adapted for optimum nutrition and weight maintenance. 
          He stood an inch over six feet tall and weighed a hundred and eighty pounds—nineteen pounds lighter than he weighed as a halfback for the Crimson Tide. His lean physique could be attributed partly to workouts in the company gym twice a week, but most of the credit went to Patty’s meals, like this one—chunks of tender pork roast with baby carrots and pearl onions in a savory sauce along with a side serving of French green beans and mushroom slices. Satisfactory, as usual. He put the plate in a microwave oven and turned the dial. When his meal was ready, he carried it to the table Max had chosen and took a seat. 
          “So, have you ever heard of Grant before today? Did you know the director of your UFO office was gonna consult her?”
           Max winced. “Don’t call it that.”
          “It fits. What you’re doing is plumb spacey.”
           “What is your problem? You bring in consultants from outside the company all the time to talk to your people.”
          “That’s different.”
          Max looked mildly affronted. “How?”
          “Because none of them are radical leftists and they don’t write company policy, in any case. Did you know Grant’s going to help—what’s her name, Roper?—write the policies?”
          “No.” 
          “Well, then, presumably you’re going to put a stop to it.”
          “I have the final say about what goes in the policies manual.”
          “The board has the final say,” Troy intoned.
          “I have the final say on what makes it to the board, now cool it. This is all your doin’ anyway.”
          “Mine?”
          “Yeah. You’re the one wanting to sell Shearwater widgets to the feds.”
          Troy gave his friend a skeptical look. “Oh. The feds are making you do it.”
          “Well, yeah, you know how they make you jump through hoops before they do bidness with you.”
        “Forget the hoop analogy and think swimming pool.” Troy paused to take a swallow of tea. “When it comes to federal compliance, you go to the shallow end and step in only as far as you have to, preferably no more than ankle-deep. But what you’ve done, buddy-ro, is go directly to the deep end and dive in head first.”
          Max sighed, exasperated, stopping his butter-smeared dinner roll halfway to his mouth. “You do your job and let me do mine, okay? Do you know anything about what’s been happening with employment issues in 

The first emphasizes Troy's personal life and provides backstory on his family life and career success. The second is a tongue-in-cheek snippet, an elbow-in-the-ribs to all my romance witer friends who specialize in paranormal romance. All in good fun!