On the return flight, we boarded the plane on time Sunday evening, then waited for a while. Not a long time, but long enough that I was beginning to wonder why we hadn't pushed back from the gate yet. Then a flight attendant got on the PA system and announced that there had been a small mix-up with catering, and they were still trying to get everything they needed on the plane, but that catering assured them they would have the missing items soon.

Not long later (maybe 10-15 minutes) the same flight attendant got back on the PA system and said that they still hadn't received the missing items from catering, but they were going to close the doors and push away anyway because there were many people on board who had a connection to catch in SLC and they couldn't jeopardize those connections. He assured everyone that there would still be time to make all the connections, but they needed to leave now in order to guarantee that.

Then he stated that the missing items were the food boxes for first class passengers. He said they still had some unused boxes from the previous flight so there was enough to go around for all first class passengers, they just didn't have the selection they normally would have. I understood that to mean everyone would have to make do with the least popular item that no one selected on previous flights.

I just feel so bad for those first class passengers.