The Lunchroom

Take fifteen minutes to write about your elementary school lunch. Describe. Remember. Smell. Touch. Who is there? Where are you? What are you eating?

I despised lunch. At first. The first week of school was the worst, because I was stuck between Jeremy Lawton and Stephanie Silverman. And I had to share a seat with Jeremy. Jeremy was kinda sloppy and awkward and, although I didn't have a problem with boys, I didn't want to be with him. I wanted to be with Bridget, my best friend, but she was in a different homeroom. Stephanie was okay - we were in Brownies together - but I didn't know her very well yet and just wasn't real sure. She was quiet.

My mother was very meticulous about making my lunch for me every day. Part of my back-to-school treat was getting to pick out a new lunch box for each year. Second grade, I had a red plastic Looney Tunes lunch box with matching Thermos. In it, my mother would lovingly place a peanut butter and jelly (always grape) sandwich wrapped up in Saran Wrap. In another baggie I would find a cracker of some kind, which was almost always Goldfish, either pizza or cheddar. If mom was in a mood, sometimes I'd get parmesan. Then, in a third baggie, there would always be 4 cookies. On occasion, I'd find a pack of Twinkies or Hostess Cupcakes. My Thermos always had iced tea in it. Underneath all the food, I'd find a little paper napkin, folded neatly. On many days, I was lucky enough to find a little note from my mother, telling me she missed me when I was at school, or that she loved me, or that she hoped I was having a good day.

I was never embarrassed by those notes but, GOD, how I wish I knew where they were now. I can't imagine that I threw them away. I even brought home the empty baggies and wrap because I hated the bottleneck at the trash can. Why am I getting so choked up about this? I'm just writing...


But Jeremy always had nasty food, like Spaghetti-O's in his Thermos. And the smell overwhelmed my delicate nasal passages and I really just couldn't stand to be near him. Plus, as I've mentioned, he was sloppy. 9 times out of 10 I would go home with some kind of orange stain on the left side of my body. Being OCD even back then, it drove me crazy. As fate would have it, Jeremy and I became best friends and stuck by each other well into the high school years. He never got any cleaner and he probably helped me make some of the worst decisions of my life. But that's not really elementary school lunch, now is it?

The smell in the cafeteria always bothered me. It was like bleach and raw, frozen food. You know that freezerburned smell? Like that, but mixed with bleach and lots of Kid Germs. It never actually smelled clean. It made me think of an awful lot of nastiness, that was just covered up with "cleaner."

I didn't even know what the lunch line looked like from a customer's perspective until I was in 4th or 5th grade. I went through once for a friend who had hurt her leg and couldn't walk. I was appointed the 'helper' and had to go get her tray lunch for her. I pissed off all the kids behind me because I didn't know what to do in line. Well, exCUSE me for having a mom who doted on me instead of just throwing cash at me for lunch!

Each grade level had to eat lunch in a different section of the cafeteria. The youngest grades had to sit closest to the office, and the 5th graders got to sit closest to the front windows and doors. As a result, I have memories from all around the room.

Mostly, though, in 5 years, the most vivid memory I have was of, again, Jeremy and his Spaghetti-O's. His mother had performed superhuman tricks on the Thermos, and he couldn't open it. So he took it to our teacher, Ms. Coote. Who couldn't open it. Who then took it to Mr. Wallace, our science teacher. Who couldn't open it. Who then took it to Mr. McCain, who - guess what? - couldn't open it. Jeremy came back to the table with a very sad look on his face, and a free peanut butter sandwich. And I picked up the Thermos and, just testing it to see how tight it felt, opened it. Our entire side of the lunchroom grew silent as Jeremy proclaimed that "A***** opened it! She opened it!" and nobody could believe it. Of COURSE all the teachers loosened it up for me, but it was still just awesome that I opened it. I became, like, a weird type of freaky hero. Nobody messed with me. Ever.

I'm pretty sure it's been over 15 minutes since I started writing, and I find myself getting quite discouraged. Looking at what a good kid I used to be, it really pisses me off that I became who I am today. I had so much going for me. And to choose to have my career at Ground Zero - the same school that was the stage for the 2-act play that was my downfall - it's like I've made no progress. And that, coupled with an extremely shitty day, on top of the fact that I miss having that little girl relationship with my parents, where I was still a good girl and my parents were still perfect - it's hard. I was so lucky to have a great family and I still do, but...I don't know. I'm miserable, and mommy can't save me. She never could. Fate. It's a bitch.