I Think Some of Them Would Prefer the Boxes

The old school lunch, she ain't what she used to be, many long years ago.

I feel for our students. They do not enjoy a good cafeteria meal like they used to. I haven't had one in several years. Maybe longer. Time flies when you're having fun, you know. My personal reason for not having the school lunch stems from a bait-and-switch tactic upon which I look with disfavor.

Back in the day, a teacher lunch cost $1.75. I know, right? Highway robbery. Even though we all managed to gain weight on our $1.75 per day. You couldn't fatten a steer for that! Not that any beef would be found in our cafeteria. Teachers are funny bunch. We expect a white tablecloth, good silver, fine china, crystal, finger bowls, linen napkins, and a waiter with a towel over his arm, all for a reasonable price of one dollar. That's what we expect. But we make do.

Sometimes, one is willing to forgo certain inconveniences for the right perk. So if the menu advertised an entree I detested, such as fish shapes, which were referred to by their eaters as "breaded bread with a fishy aftertaste," yet promised one of my favorites for dessert, such as chocolate cake...I was right there allowing that $1.75 to be deducted from my lunch account. But as bad luck and Even Steven would have it, one such day I went through the lunch line, after waiting for all the kids to pass through, because Val is many things, but she is not a cutter, even though school protocol allows such a benefit to the faculty, and discovered that THERE WAS NO CHOCOLATE CAKE! Even though I had smelled it baking all morning. Clever, those cooks, to rig up some kind of chocolate cake batter candle to fool me. Not a single solitary soul in that cafeteria had chocolate cake. It was vanilla pudding, the kind that comes in a five-gallon can.

So...I washed my hands of the school lunch line, and vowed to never eat a school lunch again. Well. Unless it's the Thanksgiving turkey chunks and mashed potatoes and some kind of pumpkin dessert thingy. But I doubt we'll ever see that again, because now everything has changed. That's right. We're not here to talk about why Val holds a grudge against the school lunch ladies. We're here to talk about what The Pony observed today in the cafeteria.

First of all, let the record show that I have first lunch, and The Pony has third lunch. Many items can change in that span of time. But today, they didn't. We had vegetable soup and green beans (because obviously we need more vegetables than what's in the soup) and a wheat roll and fruit. My lunchtime companions sat down, one with a full tray, one with a bowl of soup, and the others like me with their broughten lunches which may be a Tupperware of pot roast and veggies, or might be a large bag of chocolate-covered peanuts and a Coke. You never know with that crowd.

Anyway, I noticed that the "roll" was not a roll at all, but two long wheat breadsticks, whereas yesterday's roll was also wheat, but was the size of a Grade A Large egg. Almost. But yesterday was Salisbury steak (heh, heh, STEAK, they call it) and that tiny roll and mashed potatoes and carrots that looked suspiciously like they had a verboten glaze on them. But getting back to today's meal, my left-hand luncher opened her pack of two crackers and said, "Wouldn't you know it! They're WHEAT!" And not like Wheat Thins, apparently, because she took a bite and said, "That tastes like cardboard."

In fact, that's the opinion of most kids. You'd think they're being served assorted colors and shapes of cardboard. It's so bad that they actually eat their apples and bananas now, instead of throwing them away. I asked The Pony, a lunch-bringer himself, if he knew that the crackers for the soup were wheat.

"Of course I do. You know, don't you, that I eat lunch with people who get a tray!"

"Yes. But I didn't know if you paid attention to what's on the tray."

"I did today, because one of the guys had an extra cracker, and he said, 'Here, want this?' So I smelled it, and it smelled like dog food, but it actually wasn't bad."

"Wait! It smelled like dog food, so you tasted it?"

"Uh huh. And it was okay."

Baby steps. Make them hungry enough, and kids will eat the food allotted to them. Val, on the other hand...not so much.