Baghdad Salad Bars

by Tracey Ross

A couple months ago a friend of mine from grad school shot me an email with the subject line “critical question.” All he asked was “is this you in the picture??” and sent a link. I immediately began thinking about what embarrassing picture could have possibly been captured and would soon go viral, causing me to lose my job and render me homeless. But he didn’t sound sure that it was me. Maybe it was a lookalike captured at an inopportune moment? But why is this link to an article in Foreign Policy? I opened the link to find a harmless photo of me rocking my Cal sweatshirt at the salad bar in my college dining hall among a diverse group of dining hall patrons. The perfect photo for a Cal brochure, only the headline read “State Dept to Baghdad employees: Stop ‘whining’ about the salad bar.”

For the record, I have never been to Baghdad, nor am I an employee of the State Department. I quickly skimmed the article to make sure that my image wasn’t associated with something heinous, and found that it really was just about gripes from State Department employees. Nothing that would prompt people to stop me on the street and yell at me for my position on the war in Iraq or anything.

Still, I felt like one of those people in the identity theft commercials. I could see myself eight years ago in my college dorm, but my voice was that of some dude at the State Department talking about arugula in Baghdad. I was supposed to do something, right? I didn’t really know what that something was, so I called Foreign Policy and was able to find the author of the article in the directory. “So … I saw that article you wrote about State Department employees and salad bars, and … the picture is of me. I’m the one in the middle.” “Oh really? That’s funny. Well, not for you…” I have to say, he was totally understanding of how random and weird it was for me to see myself in “Baghdad,” but at the end of the day, Getty Images controlled the pic, so they were in their legal right to use it.

I guess it wasn’t a big deal. I was at a salad bar after all, so I don’t come across too badly. That is amazing, by the way, since I recall eating a burger, fries, and soft serve ice cream every day in college. Also, while I don’t look my most glamorous, I’ve seen worse pictures of myself. So there we are. To the loyal readers of Foreign Policy magazine, I am but a 19-year-old State Department employee in Baghdad that has a thing or two to say about the salad bar.

Tracey Ross is from Oakland and lives in DC. She enjoys yoga, knitting, and trying to breakdance. She also tweets about cities @TraceyLRoss.