Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

The new tradition of occasionally rewarding debit card use with little free rewards is growing...largely because we continue to have useless stuff to get rid of. Apparently they did it again yesterday while I was off serving at the elementary school. Prize of the day: paper cars.

No, really. Apparently it was some sort of promotional swag given to us by one of our pizza suppliers. It consisted of large stacks of perforated 3x5 cards which, when punched out and folded in a few places, made crappy paper toy cars with the Tony's Pizza logo on them. Whee!

There was still a fairly large stack of them sitting by my register today, which I neither actively promoted nor withheld. If any kid asked for one, or said "Hey, I wish I'd gotten one of those yesterday," I handed one over. Or two, or three. Have fun, kids, create your own Tony's Pizza convoy!

But I wasn't asked very often, and the matter drifted to the back of my mind, thus leading to possibly the most confusing conversation I've had with a student.

One of my favorite kids (yes, I have favorite kids. Don't tell them.) came up to me, an owlish bespectacled gamer kid who liked to occasionally chat with me over the newest Guitar Hero or Xbox 360 games. He asked me if he could have a new card.

"Sure," I said. "But it costs three dollars."

Blink. Blink. Then he giggled. "Good one. Really, though, can I have one?"

"Of course. But you have to bring in three dollars."

He continued to look at me with an uncomfortable smirk, a half-smile that said she must be kidding, but when will she drop it? He reached out uncertainly and gave me a playful punch on the arm. "No, really. I dropped mine yesterday, and someone stepped on it and it broke into pieces."

I was utterly baffled. This was usually a pretty smart kid who knew the drill. What wasn't he getting? And also, your debit card is that fragile? "Look, I don't make the rules. I'm sorry, but you know if you lose your card, you need to bring me three dollars so that I can order a new one for you."

Understanding spread over his face. "Car," he said. "Those little cars she was giving out yesterday. Can I have another one?"

Ooooohhhhh! Go me. Embarrassed, I reached behind me and handed him a couple of punch-out cars. "Sorry man. You know I wasn't here yesterday!" I laughed.

Three dollars, for a car in danger of falling to pieces if stepped on? Silly lunchlady.

Of Peewees and Peas

When I was originally hired, you may recall that I had to spend a little time learning various jobs that I may have to cover, including elementary school duty. I was honestly beginning to think it would never come up, until yesteray. Rosie called in sick...and I was asked to cover. This is a job I only helped with, following her around and doing as instructed, and only three or four times nine months ago.

Fortunately, it went pretty well. Muscle memory kicked in past my initial self-doubt, and I successfully drove the big truck in the rain, backed it up and unloaded it in the proper area, and set up for the elementary school children. Who, apparently, are really not fond of change.

Once kids started to pour in, they sized me up and surmised that I was Not Rosie. Which made me persona non grata in their book, and I was eyed with a wary look that suggested perhaps I might have poisoned Rosie. Or the food.

The pace of the serving was hard to gauge. For the first line, I set up plenty of trays in advance, remembering how quickly they began to disappear once the children arrived. However, the kindergarten set arrived a few minutes late and were surprisingly few in number...meaning most of them got trays of pizza and peas that had been sitting and getting cold. So I eased up on the advance preparation a little, only to be deluged by the fourth graders. Within two minutes of their arrival I was out of food and barely filling trays as they were snatched up one at a time.

For the most part it went smoothly, although I did get into a strange and unnecessary disagreement with a third grader. When she approached the counter, she didn't like what she saw.

"I don't like peas," she told me. "I want a tray with no peas on it."

And I want a dream date with Masi Oka, kid. It's school policy that we have to serve a nutritionally balanced lunch. "I'm sorry," I said. "All the trays come with peas on them."

"I don't like peas," she sniffed at me, as though I simply hadn't heard the first time. "Can you make me a tray with no peas on it?" Nope, sorry.

As she got increasingly agitated over the issue and kids began to maneuver around the traffic jam she created, I pushed a tray toward her decisively. "Look," I murmured. "No one's actually going to make you eat these peas. Ignore them."

And she gave me a Look, one I'd never seen on such a small face. It was an utterly withering look, an Oh-No-You-Didn't look, and after a gentle nudge to her friend I was getting it in stereo. Then she grudgingly left with pizza, milk, fruit cup...and peas.

So I arrived back tired and humbled. Tired, because I'd loaded and driven a food truck, packed and unpacked, served alone, and come back with enough time left to join in the dishwashing and clearing up at my own school. Humbled, because Rosie does this every day, except that she does so after coming in at 6:30am and cooking until lunchtime, and she's my grandmother's age.

This morning, when I told Rosie how the little ones had taken to me in her absence, her eyes absolutely twinkled. "Oh yeah," she said. "They're my babies."

And she can have them.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

4 out of 5 Felons Prefer It

Sorry folks, it's been a slow week, and I've been lazy. I do not, however, want to end the weekend without an anecdote, and this one's had me giggling since last night.

As it so happens, my husband, my roommate and I developed a strong craving for ice cream last night. As it also happens, we live just five or six houses down from a United Dairy Farmers (for those of you who do not live in the Midwest, think '7-11 Meets Baskin Robbins'. Great place, but annoying sometimes when you're trying to pay for gas and a fountain drink and have to wait 15 minutes because the clerk is working the ice cream shop for other customers). Though it was very cold outside and we were three very lazy adults, we had a house full of small people that we can give orders to. Woo!

We called over the resident teenager, Christopher, and gave him money to make the trip for us, with the assurance that he could buy for everyone. As we all began to give him our individual pint orders, complete with second choices in case certain flavors were unavailable, the boy wisely decided to start writing a list. The boy is a smart kid generally....but an abysmal speller. We razzed him a bit as he wrote, and he took it with good humor.

When his list was completed, I took it and scanned it over to make sure everyone's order was correct. What I discovered on the list had everyone in the room in fits of laughter, including Christopher.

My roommate's first choice for ice cream was Mint Chocolit Chip. Okay.

His second choice....was Chokies and Crime.

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Cookie Grumbles

When I arrived at work today, the special treat du jour was a fresh-from-the-oven Otis Spunkmeyer cookie, one with every full student lunch purchased. Tried one - they were absolutely delightful. Warm and soft, with the chocolate chips still just a little melty.

As luck would have it, I had to serve today, and the cookies were quite popular. And why not? The cookies were essentially free; they did not count as one of the two side dish choices. Out of several hundred children, I had perhaps three or four turn down their cookie.

Then, as the shift wound to a close, I ran out of cookies - with ten children left in the line.

These ten children looked broken-hearted. "We're the LAST kids," one of them said to me. "Can we get anything special?"

And I looked. All I could find were leftovers from our most recent debit card reward giveaway - a practice started last April by my previous supervisor to encourage children to remember their cards, but which has largely become a way to give away stuff we need to get rid of. This last time it was a box of individually wrapped cinnamon grahams nearing expiration. Their unhappiness was understandably unassauged by the substitute offer...and even so I only had six.

I was at an impasse. These ten had done nothing to deserve being sent away empty-handed, and though I'd heard Rosie would be returning from the elementary school momentarily with her leftover cookies, I didn't want to leave them waiting in line indefinitely as their short lunch break ticked away. As the grumbling increased, I told the kids "Let me check one last time" and disappeared into the kitchen without much hope, wondering with vague bemusement whether I was going to have a mini-riot on my hands. And suddenly there she was, still apple-cheeked from the bitter cold outside, bringing in empty serving trays, boxes of Uncrustables...and the very last tray of cookies.

As I returned to my serving station with cookies in hand, the kids actually cheered. It felt a little theatrical, like a cheesy commercial. You could almost see the camera just over my shoulder, catching a little of my profile and my two arms outstretched with the tray of moist delicious chocolate-chip cookies, and just beyond that point of view the cheering faces of the children as my profile passed through the doorway and into the brightly-lit lunchroom.

So there you have it folks, I got a standing ovation today for cookies. And I didn't even bake them!

Word to the Wise

If you are my roommate's 14-year-old son, and you have had your computer taken away for misuse and poor grades...do not enter my private office area (the one you've been told to stay out of, the one with the sign that says "No"), and use my private computer to access your MySpace profile.

Alternatively, if you are said 14-year-old and you do use my personal private computer in my personal private office area to access your MySpace profile, have the good sense to log yourself out and cover your tracks.

I knew someone had been in my office over the last week or so, as my monitor was occasionally turned off at the actual switch rather than allowed to power down on its own after 10 minutes as I tend to do. I didn't think too much about it until I attempted to log on to MySpace earlier today to contact a friend whose e-mail address I had forgotten. I'm not a big fan of MySpace, but it does have its uses.

Surprising - I was apparently already logged in. More surprising - "my" mailbox was full of recently read and replied to messages from emo teenage girls in black makeup, girls whose motto space contained nuggets of wisdom like "the world sux and im wating for it to end".

It didn't take me long to surmise what had happened. And it didn't take long for my annoyance to turn to amusement.

I have now set the screensaver to return to my password-protected Welcome screen after I've walked away for longer than three minutes.

And said emo boy now listens to Celine Dion, does Reiki healing, raises miniature Poodles, and idolizes President Bush.

Game, set, match.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

My Goose is Tooked!

Missing: Cement Lawn Goose
Age: 14
Name: Jenny
Last Seen Wearing: Santa suit

Folks, today is a momentous day, as yet another chapter of my youth comes to an oddly appropriate close. And so today I shall tell you the epic tale of Jenny, the Decapitated-Recapitated Goose...also known in days of yore as The Hot Goose.

Her saga begins years ago, in the women's dormitory where I was attending college. A couple of girls in the dorm two rooms down from me got quite sozzled one night, and in an evening of debauched shenanigans came home with one of those delightfully kitschy cement lawn geese, which they had stolen from someone's front yard. How a couple of 95-pound underage drunk girls successfully made off with a 65 pound chunk of tacky yard art without attracting attention is beyond me, but it must have been quite a sight. It sat in their dorm room for the rest of the school year; then as the semester wound down and they faced the impossibility of carrying such a trinket home by airplane, they gave it to my boyfriend. Who in turn...gave it to his mom as a gift.

His mother was more touched by her son's gift that we ever anticipated. She put it in her front lawn and even bought it clothes. A bikini for summer. A little raincoat and umbrella in April. A Halloween costume, and even a Santa suit. I couldn't help but giggle every time I saw her doting on what my boyfriend and I had privately dubbed the Hot Goose.

Years later, I happened to be living two houses down from her and I saw the goose in her trash, headless. It had simply grown so old it crumbled, I guess. But I was loath to see that odd little trifle of my college days disappear just yet, so I took it home and fashioned it a pretty passable head from papier mache, and once it was dried and matched to the body with a few layers of glossy white she looked great. I tied a green ribbon around her neck and redubbed her Jenny, an homage to the silly campfire story of childhood. When I told my ex's mother that I had taken and repaired the goose, she was thoroughly amused...and a few days later I came home to find a shopping bag next to Jenny filled with all her outfits.

I now live in a house very close to a college campus (not the same one), surrounded by student neighbors. Jenny has continued to grace my porch for a few years now. The kids got a big kick out of her, and looked forward to pulling out the bag at the start of each new season to find her a new outfit to wear.

This morning, my husband and I were leaving the house when he turned to me and said, "Umm...I think our hot goose is hot again." I turned to look, and sure enough she was gone, Santa suit and all. Taken - in all likelihood - by drunk college students.

Maybe I should have been upset, but all I could do was laugh until my ribs ached. A silly and irreplaceable bit of sentimental frippery she was, but what a fitting close to our history together.

Farewell, Jenny, and godspeed you on your future adventures.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Number Crunching

t's a battle I never seem to be on the right side of.

Last spring I mentioned, on several occasions, my frustration with kids who insist on memorizing their student I.D. numbers and entering them on the keypad instead of having their debit cards ready to scan.

Earlier this fall, I expounded on the troubles caused by the temporary paper debit cards issued to the students pending the arrival of their permanent, hard plastic cards.

Because those little paper cards almost NEVER scanned properly, I was having to look up students manually as they came through. Ask kid "What's your name?", hit 'Account', then 'Name Lookup', enter a few letters of the name, and select the proper result from the list. Sounds like a lot, but I can actually do this very quickly, having spent my entire adult life in clerical and transcription jobs. However, my supervisor insisted that this was slowing down the line and that I needed to get on the kids' cases to...memorize their I.D. numbers and type them in when they come through. This annoyed me to no end, for two reasons:

1. This is exactly what I spent three months trying to discourage last year, because kids so frequently screw up typing their numbers in, which actually slows down the process; and

2. It's a new school year, meaning that half the school body consists of recently elementary school kids who don't know their numbers. Each time kids came through with their defective cards and no knowledge of their ID numbers, I'd have to look them up manually anyway, THEN stop to write down their six-digit number on a scrap of paper, give them the paper and lecture them on getting it memorized. As you can imagine, this really did nothing to improve checkout speeds. Fifth graders are distractible, and have an unsurprising tendency to lose small pieces of paper.

"C'mon," I'd urge them, on the third or fourth day that I rewrote their numbers for them. "It's shorter than your phone number. You can memorize your phone number."

And so it went on. Honestly, I didn't mind pulling them up by names - as I say, I'm very quick with the system, it gives me a chance to start memorizing their names, and it's actually slower for me to stop and remind them all. Mainly I continued nagging because when I'm perceived as being too indulgent with the kids, I occasionally find myself relegated to serving so that my supervisor can run register herself and scold the kids herself in her own, much sterner way.

After several weeks, the new plastic debit cards did indeed arrive. I'd say not a moment too soon - at this point 98 percent of the paper cards had been lost, thrown away with lunch trays, laundered, folded, smeared, or otherwise made to barely resemble a scrap of paper that barely resembled an identification card - but since they had never really worked anyway, having the kids continue to bring them really served no purpose other than to enforce the habit of carrying one.

But now, they had shiny new cards that they were, for the first time in their young lives, required to carry at all times, identification and meal card all in one. But you know what? By this time they were starting to catch on to the keypad system, and many had finally learned their numbers. And many felt that this was simply waaaay less hassle than actually remembering to bring their cards and have them in hand at time of checkout.

Enter my supervisor, who tells me that I'm being too soft on the kids and that I really need to get the kids' cases to...stop typing their numbers and start bringing their cards. Her main concern now - when they mistype their numbers, there's a chance they may actually pull up another student's account, increasing the risk that the wrong student may be charged (unlikely - I always check the photo and name against the student in front of me).

Try explaining this to a fifth grader.

Me: I know it's hard to remember your card. But what if you type the wrong number and someone else ends up paying for your lunch?

Kid: Sounds good to me!

Me: Oh-kaaay...what if some other kid types the wrong number and you pay for HIS lunch?

Kid: Uhhhhh....I wouldn't like that. But I can type in the right number!

So, mystery solved. Having entered this profession near the end of a school year last year, I often wondered why we have such a battle over debit cards vs. keypad entry. Now I realize that it's because we spend the first month of school training them to do this.

Next, please!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Chess Nuts Boasting in an Open Foyer

So, apart from being handsome, funny, sweet, and bringing home all A's and B's this year, my little Duncan Disorderly is rapidly becoming quite the little chess whiz! Last weekend he participated in his second chess tournament ever...and came home with a third place trophy!

Being a chess mom is a somewhat unique position, differing from having kids in soccer, or band, or school plays. There are the practices, sure. But unlike their swim meets or band concerts, a chess tournament is an all-day commitment that we don't even get to watch. Parents come to play the Waiting Game. You sign your kid in, and when his first match-up is listed, you take him to the big hall filled with chess boards and nervous children, wish him luck, and return to the lobby to fidget and fret with the other parents, ready to either console or congratulate when that little guy finally comes through those double doors and his face tells you everything you need to know. Then the list of second round match-ups gets tacked to the wall and it all starts again.

Duncan's first tournament went better than I expected and rather ideally, I thought. Knowing my little guy's level of confidence, I really did hope that he would do not so well as to set up unreasonable expectations for future competitions, but well enough that he was not immediately discouraged from the whole tournament scene. Out of five rounds, he won three and lost two, coming in at ninth place in the final standings. Wouldn't you know - they gave trophies through eighth place, which disappointed him. But he got a feel for tournament play, a participation medal, and a taste for the competition. On the way home he told me with a smile, "I'm going to practice more for the next tournament...and I'm going to win."

And practice he did. When his own chess club hosted a tournament here in town last week, he cracked open his chess strategy workbook. And played his dad. And played my brother online. And when the Big Day came, hooo boy, was he excited.

The tournament began much as the last one had. In the first round, he was creamed by an older kid in a very short game and came back with shining eyes. I opened my arms to him and promptly received a hug that nearly broke my heart. There are hugs they give you in passing when they're happy, and there are hugs that you can just feel the need in. He melted into my arms and stayed there a long time, occasionally tightening his grip around my neck. I held on just as long as he needed me to...but when he broke off the embrace it was with a bit of an embarrassed look and an "Okay, Mom, you don't need to hug me so long!"

A few helpings of pizza and pep-talk later, he went into his second round feeling refreshed...and won it. And the next round. And the next round.

Going into the last round (the tournament was Swiss style, with five rounds and no elimination), the boy was fourth in the standings. Trophies were only given to third this time, so I knew the last round was do-or-die. Lose the round, and he would be coming home with nothing but the knowledge that he had again played rather well and been an outstanding sport. Win the round, and there was a good chance he'd be coming home with his very first trophy. And so off my little third grader went, paired off with an older kid, a sixth grader (whom I know from my lunch line, no less!) who Duncan had told me usually beat him at chess club meetings.

Folks, such butterflies I had! All through the tournament I had been proud of him. He'd made an impressive showing, playing chess better than I ever will, and through it all he'd been a good sport win or lose. I knew it would be all right if he lost....but wouldn't it be great if he won?

It was a long battle...in the end they were the second-to-last pairing to emerge. Duncan's face was inscrutable as he and his opponent wound their way over to the tournament director, who was equally inscrutable as he scribbled down the results of their game. Finally my little man looked in my direction and flashed me a smile, and my heart soared.

So there it is. Sitting on Duncan's bookshelf now is a shiny trophy, and sitting right here is one proud mom.

(Disclaimer: As much as I would like to take credit for the horribly punny title of this post, it comes from an old joke. Alas, I must keep my ego in check. Good knight, all!)

Thursday, November 15, 2007

With Friends Like These

You know...those lunchladies are a mischievous bunch.

I live in one of those.....*shudder*....football towns. College football takes over the minds, car windshields, and wardrobes of nearly the entire population starting in the fall. Personally, I hate football, but it's not a fact I tend to advertise. 'Round here, it's a bit like admitting to hating puppies or mugging small children.

Apparently, there's some big game this weekend, and the lunchladies have gotten permission to wear their colors and State shirts and such tomorrow instead of the regular "Choose Healthy" logo shirts.

They were excitedly discussing this when I arrived this morning. Rosie from the kitchen turned an eager eye to me. "You're going to wear your State shirt tomorrow too, right?"

I blinked owlishly, less out of confusion and more from the fact there was simply no speculation in her question whatsoever as to the issue of whether I even owned such attire.

When the shocking truth of my utter lack of sports enthusiasm came to light, I was assured that Rosie would be happy to bring a shirt for me to wear tomorrow. "You have to show your spirit with us tomorrow," she twinkled. "I'd hate to see you have an unfortunate accident. Why, there might be an unexpected grease spill on the floor or something!"

After the shift was over, I headed for home, making a mental note to at least look for something in the team's colors to wear in case the shirt was forgotten tomorrow. Hey, I'm not into organized sports...but I'm a good sport. My mind wandered as the light changed to "Walk" and I headed across the intersection to my nearby home.

HOONK!!

When my heart restarted, I peered into the car I had been crossing in front of to see my supervisor Cathy in the driver's seat, doubled over with laughter and nearly in tears.

Oh, those ladies. Sometimes I think they'd fit right in with the Hell's Grannies. Better get in line before they send a violent gang of Keep Left signs after me.

(NOTE: I would like to stress that this is all in good fun, and that the Hell's Lunchladies have, in fact, never committed any acts of violence against my person. *cough*help*cough*)

The Absent-Minded Procrastinator

Folks, I apologize. After letting my blog die all summer, I laid the blame on the long break from school, my biggest source of anecdote material. Then I blamed the Move From Hell. Then, when both situations ceased to be a problem, I promptly let it die again anyway.

And I really have no excuse. I simply got out of the habit again, not just of blogging but of spending any time on the computer whatsoever. I knew it had gotten pretty bad when I logged into my instant messenger for the first time in over a month and was promptly IM'd by a friend of mine, who said "Hey, you're online....are you updating your blog??"

Well, I do love this blog and do not wish to see it die. And while I know it ain't a "blog of note" or anything, I also realize I do have a few regular readers, and so I plan to revive this thing by making more of an effort to write on a regular schedule instead of simply "when I feel like it". I'm thinking either M/W/F, with the occasional weekend post if something special happens. Or Tu/Thu/Su - which would give me two weekday posts and one to write during Duncan's chess club meetings. Which is preferable will depend on how much good material I get from the lunchlady gig and how much time I actually find during the week to write. But either way I am committing to weekly writing from now on.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Lunch l337y

"I used to be 'With It'. But then they changed what IT was. Now what I'm with isn't IT, and what's IT seems scary and wierd. It'll happen to YOU." -- Abe Simpson

One thing that perpetually cracks me up is the dogged belief of children that theirs is the only generation that's With It. It's true, in many aspects I am quite out of touch with the younger crowd. It's true, I don't 'get' a lot of their television shows, their music, or why that have to play it so gosh-darned LOUD for that matter. But children also invariably believe that as an adult, I don't 'get' video games. Being over the age of thirty, surely I would never touch such a thing.

Silly rabbit! We're the kids of Generation X. The MTV generation. The pop-culture obsessed slackers who grew up with Reagan and Star Wars and the Cold War. And we were the first generation to grow up with video games. I myself had an Adam computer and an Atari 2600. I played Infocom games on my Commodore 64, and I knew that if I went into the darkness that I might get eaten by a grue. I was thrilled in high school to receive an NES for Christmas, and spent long hours tracking down Triforce pieces, for who else could save the kingdom of Hyrule? Sure, video games were for kids...we just never stopped playing as gradually we grew up to be really big kids with jobs and kids of our own.

As I sat at my register today checking student after student through the lunch line today, I heard an argument start up a few feet down the line. I couldn't follow the conversation (nor was I trying), but I gathered that three boys were discussing the game Halo. By the time they got close to me their argument was making it difficult to hear the other children, and the gist of it seemed to be - this is a direct quote - "Dude, you're GAY if you don't like Halo!!"

"Boys!" I said. "Come on, now. I like Halo just as much as you do, but could we please discuss this a little more quietly?"

All three stopped conversing and looked at me with extreme amusement. "Do you even know what Halo IS?" one of them scoffed.

"Of course I do," I replied, "I played all three of them."

Their complete and utter overreaction to this news was hilarious. All three of them started visibly, and two of them yelled "Whoa!"

Heheh. Oh noez, teh lunchlady can has Halo! Pwn3d!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Ratted Out!

Kids just never know when a good thing shouldn't be pushed.

One entree, two sides, one milk. It's my mantra, what I say to children day after day. These are the components of a "Type A" school lunch. Entrees are required to contain a certain quantity of carbohydrates and protein, and children must choose two different sides, presumably to encourage a wider selection of food groups; this is a state mandate, not a suggestion.

But, it's full of holes. A surprisingly large number of children like to just get an entree and two juice cups as their sides, with apple being the most popular by far. By the state guidelines, this is okay with the lunchladies as long as they are two different flavors of juices.

This strikes me as incredibly inane. I know they're trying to start teaching the kids to make their own choices, hopefully healthy choices. But kids generally aren't going to make healthy choices if they can possibly help it. They come through my line with two identical juices, and when I tell them the rule they tell me they really can't stand the other kinds. And I relate. I hate grape juice. I hate orange juice. What do I care? Kids are choosing nachos and cheese with juice and more juice for lunch, and have the right to do so. Is this nutritional trainwreck going to be turned around if I make them mix up the juices? So I tend to - quietly - tell them "Just go." And they know I'm bending the rule for them.

Well, I got a talkin' to today by the other cashier, the lady who runs the line on the other side of the cafeteria. Kids don't always end up in the same line every day - sometimes kids who usually see me will end up on the other end for a day. And when instructed to take a juice back and get something else, what do you think they say to her?

"Well, the OTHER lunchlady lets us do it this way!"

She wanted to know if this was true. And to remind me that this was state policy. Of course I told her I had merely forgotten; that I didn't always catch what types of juices they had on their trays as they rapidly passed my register. And I assured her that I would of course take more care in the future to make sure it didn't happen again.

So there it is. Kids, you thought it was a stupid rule. I agreed with you. And now you've ensured that I will have to enforce it, you geniuses.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Those Lousy Kids!

Friends, I have now experienced a parental rite of passage. One that every parent hopes they will never deal with, but every parent does. I'm surprised I lasted this long, but in the end I could not escape.

Duncan Disorderly has lice. Had lice. I really, really hope the latter is true.

I should have known sooner. The condition he was in when the problem came to light qualifies me for the ironic Mommy of the Year award. Two days before the actual discovery, I did in fact notice that he was scratching his head a lot. Suspiciously, I checked over his head...and found nothing. Mind you, he has fairly thick hair, and I have no experience with lice. Perhaps the problem was not full-blown yet, or perhaps I simply did not know how, where, or how thoroughly to look. But in the post-construction haze of drywall dust in which we live, we're all a little dry-skinned and itchy, and I chalked it up to dry skin and dandruff.

Two days later, my friend came home (I should s'plain, Ricky. The big move is actually something we've gone into with our best friend, a single dad of three. Big house, three adult best friends, many financial and child-care conveniences). My friend came home early from work to pick up his youngest daughter, Alessa, from school because she had lice. Uh-oh. Duncan and Alessa are the closest of the kids in the family - she's about a year older than he is, and they are constantly playing together.

Check again - et voila!

Honestly, I haven't the foggiest idea how I had missed them. Apparently after my initial dismissal, Duncan decided not to complain further about his itchy head. However, he had been itching so much in the past few days that he had sores on his scalp from scratching. And there were lice. Adult ones. Big, nasty creatures. I swear, I pulled one off his head and it snarled at me.

Frenetic activity ensued, procedures which would make any disaster management organization proud. You, upstairs! Grab all blankets, pillowcases, dirty clothes. You, get down to the nearest grocery store and get lice kits. You, check all the remaining household members (no one else had them, despite the furious psychosomatic itching now going around). You - stay put, don't touch stuff! For a while it seemed like there was a delousing party going on, with my friend and I working the various stations. One child showered. Next child showered while the first child got hair saturated with lice killing cream. First child re-showered while second child got the cream treatment. Combs were boiled, linens and clothes were added to an increasing mountain of trash bags in the laundry room. The pets - oh sweet Diana the PETS need to be checked! (they were also fine, fortunately). Then manual delousing of the both of them, which was no fun task. Side by side, my friend and I hunched over our children with tiny-toothed lice combs, picking by sections and removing the offending vermin.

At last, it was done. It took about two days to get the laundry caught up, and there are still more tasks ahead of us. They need daily checks, and retreatment in two days. I don't even know for sure if they will be allowed to return to school tomorrow - I think the school nurse may insist on inspecting their heads personally.

There is one shining light in all of this, however. Duncan got the haircut I've been nagging him to get for ages - and I didn't even have to be a tyrant and insist. After all his resisting, a few days of having parasitic insects chewing on his head changed his tune drastically, and he was asking me repeatedly when we were going to get it done (the barber would not take him until 48 hours after his treatment).

Once there, the barber shaved most of it close according to my instructions, pausing to ask if I'd like to have the front left a little longer so that he could spike it a bit. Ask the boy, I said. It's his hair. The boy didn't hesitate.

"Get RID of it!"

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Daddy got SERVED.

There are two Duncans, it would seem. One for home, and one for show.

As I've mentioned, Duncan is a gifted kid...says so right there on the state test result paper they sent me. Comes by it honestly, I suppose, as he comes from two parents who were labeled as gifted children as well, albeit with two very different ways of dealing with it. My husband was a rather proud, confident gifted kid, one who was quite happy to share and display his talents. I, on the other hand, was a painfully shy gifted kid, one who was very paranoid about being perceived as "show-offy"...and therefore had a tendency not to volunteer too much.

Duncan, I think, falls somewhere in the middle. He does like to show off in a few areas where he shines, particularly math. But he definitely puts on a different persona around kids than he does around adults. Oh, I don't just mean in the general sense. Of course kids do play with kids differently. But as someone who knows Duncan very well, I can tell that he...dumbs it down...around other kids to fit in better. It's kind of awkward to watch, but it's his choice.

I'm not the only one who's noticed it, apparently. Every Sunday when I pick him up from Chess Club, he's usually playing some kid his own age, and they're really goofing around, not thinking moves through clearly, just playing like...well, like eight-year-olds. So I was surprised when his coach took me aside and said, "You know...Duncan's game really improves when he plays older kids. He really applies himself...and he is smart. I'd like to get him competing in some tournaments this school year." Once my swelled head subsided a bit, I asked the boy if he'd like to - hey, I don't want to be one of those pushy 'stage moms' - and his interest was piqued. So, there may be some interesting stories to tell later this year!

But around us boring ol' grownups, he is perfectly content to strut his stuff. Recently he has also developed an addiction to the classic Super Nintendo game "Tetris Attack". A seemingly simple game, and one I enjoyed playing some pretty evenly-matched games of against him...at first. But the boy studied the game. He learned the strategies, and how to build up opponent-crushing combos...and before long I was barely winning one game in five against him, if that.

Intrigued, my husband decided to try and take on the boy himself - and found himself getting just as thoroughly stomped as I was. After a long session of rematches the other day, Duncan told his daddy that he would only play one more game. Gamely tossing in some competitive banter, my husband replied, "Oh, I see. Afraid you're gonna lose to your old man, eh?"

Duncan sighed. "No, Daddy. I'm just getting bored playing against an amateur."

That's our boy.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Off-white, eggshell, or ecru?

Can't post...must...paint...

Sorry the blog's getting a bit spotty again lately. The new house has been taking up all my time and attention lately, and is starting to remind me strongly of this:
















(Note: if you've never seen this classic '80s film, you have missed out. Go out immediately and rent "The Money Pit". The above referenced scene alone is worth it.) Heck, the landlord even said "two weeks" when we first signed up for this ride.

Between the continued difficulty in getting professional drywallers to show up and the little extra difficulties that have popped up here and there with plumbing and so on, we're still not living in the new place yet. And so I insisted to the landlord that I be allowed to help in any way that I can.

Hoo boy.

My three-day Labor Day weekend was spent doing just that - labor. Painting. Installing electrical outlets. Painting. Scrubbing. Painting. Moving in what I can. And - well, you know. Painting.

I have to admit, I'm a little frayed around the edges right about now. For the past week I've gotten up in the morning and either (1) gone straight to the new house to work; or (2) gone to actual work, picked up Duncan from school, and gone to the new house to work. Then home to make dinner, clean up after dinner, return to house, work until too tired to continue, go to bed and start again. I'm bruised all over, I'm sore all over, I smell paint everywhere I go, and I've burst into random tears on three different occasions in a week simply because...I'm tired. But the house is going to be great!

Sometimes, though, the little victories can make all the difference. Today, when I got into my car after work, the radio crackled to life. The radio has not worked in the entire year that I've owned the car. Sure, it has no AC, a duct-taped bumper, and a loose window I have to guide in with one hand as I roll it up with the other, but it may as well have been a Mercedes as I cruised over to the new house with the tunes cranked up. It was dead again an hour later, but the moment was there. Then when I arrived at the new house, a note wedged into the door by the local gas company let me know I have HOT WATER. And when I went inside? A real live drywaller, repairing the ceiling! And he'll be back TOMORROW TOO!

Folks, you just can't buy euphoria like that. Not legally, anyway.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Where's Wall-Do?

Seems I'm not moving this weekend. There's a tiny problem with the drywall guy. He's gone.

Not 'too busy' or 'canceled' or anything. Just failed to show up, and failing to answer any calls. And without proper walls, we can't move in. The frustrated new landlord was highly apologetic on the phone, swearing that he's calling every drywall guy he can think of, asking not 'how much' but 'how soon can you be here?'. But alas, this is a small college town, and school's just starting up. Drywall guys everywhere are booked solid, as the apartment business just soars this time of year. So we're looking at another week, minimum.

Fortunately for us, we are required to give our current landlord notice from the 1st of the month, and therefore were already going to be paying one more month's rent at our current place. This seemed like an expensive inconvenience at the time, but now it seems like a hidden blessing - if push comes to shove, we're fine to stay where we are for up to another month.

Also, it gives us more time to fix up what we can and thoroughly clean our current apartment. If we're to pay another month's rent here, all the more reason to try and get our full deposit back, yes? Today's project - fix that broken kitchen faucet handle that's been driving me crazy for ages.

I wasn't smart enough to bring the broken one to the store...and realized when I got there that I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for. I settled on a 'universal' faucet set that claimed to 'replace most handles'. Out of the package at home, however, it did not seem to be a match. Even with the variously shaped inserts to the new handles, the 'stem' I was looking at on the sink did not, in fact, seem remotely compatible.

Still, I could see that the part could be unscrewed, and I began to think that maybe this was part of the old handle, and that if I unscrewed that, I would find the sort of stem I was supposed to be looking for. Those of you who see where this is going, stop your tittering immediately. Who's telling the story, here?

I had the part mostly unscrewed...suddenly it burst off as water began SHOOTING from the handle. Panicking and sputtering, I grabbed the piece and jammed it back into the hole, trying desperately to screw it back into place. I was loath to let go long enough to turn off the water, as my efforts were at least staunching the flow somewhat. But as the part refused to go back in and the water rapidly warmed (oh, why did it have to be the HOT water handle), I realized my options were narrowing quickly. I dropped the piece and dived under the sink for the main shutoff, as the water reached geyser proportions.

Water now off, I stood back up and surveyed the chaos. Sudden, blissful silence, punctuated only by the occasional drip, drip from the ceiling. Kitchen counters, soaked. Tray filled with magazines, mail and bills, soaked. Floors, soaked. Songbird, soaked. So I did the only thing that occurred to me in the moment - I laughed. Standing in a huge puddle with water dripping from my hair, I laughed until my ribs ached and my eyes teared up. And then I got the towels.

I did return to the store, this time armed with the old broken handle. Wouldn't you know, the particular type I needed cost about three times more, but hey - it's fixed!

Such is the life of the calamity bird, ladies and gentlemen. Inconvenient at times - but seldom boring.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Walking Taco, Hidden Puddle

Find me the desk jockey in Food Services that came up with 'walking tacos'. I would like to cordially invite this person to come and cover my shift on Walking Taco day.

It seems I shall be working the lines for a while, with no return to cashiering in sight. Well, that's okay. As I've mentioned, it's not a bad job, though it is hot and tiring work. And it does take a little finesse to set up properly. You work in a fairly small space behind a counter, trying to keep everything within easy reach. Trays on the left. Hot foods in the warmers in front of you. Kitchen trolley rolled up to one side with a large container of side salad and a large container of tortilla chips for the nachos. Grab tray, fill, hand to student, rinse, repeat.

"Walking tacos" consist of a big gloppy helping of taco meat and toppings...served right on the tray with a bag of Fritos, presumably with the idea that the kid can spoon the toppings into the Fritos bag and eat the mish-mash like a taco salad. So in addition to the hot foods, I have to find room for a large container of tortilla chips AND a large container of Fritos, a salad server AND three jumbo containers of shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, and diced tomatoes, all of which have to be at waist level and sitting on ice packs to keep them cold. This requires a secondary trolley, so I'm really parked in. This also takes a lot more time, as there are now extra steps to putting together each entree, and children are notoriously wishy-washy about answering the age-old question "lettuce, cheese, tomatoes?" Sure, it's a small difference in time per order, but about two hundred kids come through my line with a very limited amount of time for lunch, so it adds up.

On top of this, my accident-prone nature seems to be flaring up again, though I swear I'm only partially to blame this time. For one thing, I'm learning the hard way to double-check the settings on my warming trays, as whoever puts food on my line before I come in has been setting them to 10, or "High". (On a scale of 1-10, they should generally be no higher than 5.) Two days ago, I scalded myself with water from the nacho cheese warmer...and then noticed that the cheese cups within were starting to bubble and WARP. Yesterday, I again managed to burn my hand when I attempted to take the lid off the corn - sure enough, set to High. The ensuing chicken-like hand flapping dance was accompanied by the sort of litany inspired by having a large audience of attentively listening fifth graders. "Goh-errr....BLESS it, mother...how-wooooow-wow!"

To make the day complete -at one point I began to run low on supplies, so I had to navigate around the extra equipment and make my way back to the fridges for more. As I turned the corner, I hit a small puddle in the doorway caused by a leaking freezer. A split second later, I was on the floor in the doorway with a jammed wrist and feeling very foolish, having just taken a pratfall worthy of Cartoon Network. And still with an audience of wide-eyed younglings. Goodness knows what they're starting to think, but it's probably not far from the mark.

This lady's hilarious, they're thinking. She probably trips over cordless phones.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Fear and Nachos

School is back in session! Time for me to get back into the swing of things....and time for many kids to adjust to a whole new way of doing things.

I work at an intermediate school. In this area, 5th and 6th graders go to 'intermediate' after elementary, but before middle school (known, where I was going through the system, as "junior high"). Thus, half my students were fresh out of elementary school, where their days were spent in one class, with one teacher, their tasks and destinations dictated to them hour by hour. These kids are unaccustomed to class schedules, lockers and campus maps. And they're unaccustomed to any sort of choice in their lunch menu.

Also, there's been some staff shifting this year. We lost some folks and gained a new girl....unfortunately, this forced some juggling of roles, and although I had come in expecting to return to my usual register, I found myself serving. This in itself was a bit of a disappointment - I really like cashiering. It's a softer job, I can sit down a lot more, and it gives me more opportunity to interact with the kids and learn their names. Add to this the fact that the school's air conditioning still has not been turned on, which amplified the already considerable heat of standing in an enclosed corner of the cafeteria, leaning over steaming trays of fries and boiled hot dogs.

But this is the job. I work where needed. Suck it up, Songbird, and smile!

The heat was nearly overwhelming, and I found myself constantly resisting the urge to wipe the sweat from my face with my gloved hands. Vaguely, I thought of surgeons, and wished I had my own personal assistant to mop my brow from time to time. Quick, someone call Mike Rowe. I've got a Dirty Job for him!

But it was a great day. It was sweet to see all the fresh new faces, looking interested and excited...and a little overwhelmed. I was happy to coach them through the lunch process - one entree, two sides, one milk. Yes, you can choose which ones you want. Move down the line and give your card to the cashier, sweetie! And they were all so polite. I think fear had a lot to do with it...but I truly hope it lasts after they've grown comfortable.

One more interesting observation. The fifth graders ordered lots - LOTS - of nachos. For some reason, "nachos and cheese" are one of the alternative choices for the main entree, a baffling choice that I've never approved of. Nachos and cheese do not constitute a lunch. A snack, perhaps, or a side item. But after five years of accepting the lunch they were given, these ten-year-olds were given choices, and they realized hey, I can have nachos and cheese...for lunch! I sold nearly triple the usual amount of this particular item, and all in the fifth grade shift. Once the sixth graders began to stream in, the novelty factor vanished, and hot dogs became the lunch of choice.

And here I sit, my feet aching, back sore, shirt soaked, smelling strongly of eau de hot dog water, and still feelin' pretty good. A successful first day!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The Best Laid Plants

Earlier this year I expressed an interest in gardening. Trouble is, my love of gardening is far exceeded by my complete and utter suck at gardening. It's been an adventure this summer, one that has had its ups and downs, but ultimately I am falling back on Rule One of the brown-thumb, namely:

Watch what does grow...and take credit for it!


















And this year, my backyard seems to be the perfect place to do just that. Left to its own devices, it quickly becomes a lush wild jungle of foliage. Nothing that I planted myself was willing to stick around too long, but the yard has grown flush with interesting and unexpected flora. And so, I therefore declare myself Master Gardener of dandelions, Duckfoot and English ivy, the occasional random wildflower, poison ivy and oak (yikes!), and - this is absolutely fabulous -

PUMPKIN.

This caught me completely off guard. My neighbor failed to dispose of her Jack O' Lantern last year, and over the winter months it essentially folded into itself and became a puddle of seeds and pumpkin mush. Combined with a large squirrel population, this became a recipe for the surprise I got this summer when pumpkin plants began taking over my yard.


















Now, I'm a city girl. Raised in a metropolis. Pumpkins come from the store, right? I'd certainly never laid eyes on a pumpkin plant before. These things are HUGE. And startlingly aggressive. According to sites on the Web, they can grow up to six feet per day if you let them. I've scaled this back a bit...but it has still consumed Duncan's little garden bench.

And I thought, How freaking cool is this? I pictured my yard at Halloween, filled with my own pumpkins. Friends joked to me about how we could sit out on Halloween night and await the Coming of the Great Pumpkin.

But alas, it is not to be. It's a long story, but I'm moving this weekend. Not far - just to a bigger house a couple of blocks away. Opportunity knocked, and I answered. This time next week I shall be plagiarizing other plants, far from my pumpkin patch.

I wonder what I shall be a whiz at growing there?

Monday, August 20, 2007

School of Fish

Lunch Lady Land is officially re-open for business! Well....almost.

School starts on Wednesday. As a city schools employee, I received notification in the mail last week that I was to attend "customer service training" on Monday (today), followed by CPR training. Tomorrow we report to the kitchen to work 'until done', presumably getting everything dusted off, reassembled, stocked and ready to go when the surge of fresh little faces comes through the lines on Wednesday.

I was unsure of what to expect in three hours of 'customer service training', but oh....oh, ye Gods, the reality surpassed my imagination. Initially lulled into complacency by the fresh bagels and passable coffee at the door, I greeted familiar faces and settled in. As photocopies were passed around, my eyes glazed and my heart sank in horrified comprehension. Michael Scott would have felt right at home. I felt as though my spleen were attempting to reach up and throttle me.

Yes, my friends, I had unwittingly walked right into....a motivational seminar.

The title of said seminar was - I kid you not - FISH! Sticks. This is a genuine motivational package employed by many companies, based on the business practices of the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Washington. A kitschy little program in the same vein as "The One Minute Manager" and "Hey! Who Moved My Freakin' Cheese?". We were shown a 17-minute video on "how do they keep the vision alive?" laced with inspiring jargon and vague niceties, the gist of which was:

1. We can use the words "vision" and "commit" many, many times in seventeen minutes, and often many times per sentence.

2. We can tell when someone is being inconsistent with the vision by refusing to have fun.

3. We used to be a boring place to work, as people had to walk allllll the way around the counter to retrieve fish for customers. Now we throw fish at each other, and it is lighthearted and hilarious!

Folks, there was more! There were team exercises. There was slogan writing. There were brightly colored stuffed fish, which were tossed to us as prizes for participating in discussion. Commit it, be it, coach it. What does vision mean to you? What does it mean to BE a vision? Commit to the vision. Have a vision of the commitment. You know, I thought, I'm having a vision of my own commitment right now!

One of the final exercises of the long morning involved us calling out what we like to see in our fellow employees and ourselves, as the speaker sketched appropriately labeled little fish to the whiteboard. "Loyal!" someone chimed in. "Dependable!" trilled another.

"Breaded, with a nice tartar sauce?"I volunteered. Mostly titters, a few odd looks. I shrugged. "Hey, it's lunchtime."

I've got to give her points for good humor. Amongst all the friendly, dependable, honest, hardworking little fish, she did indeed add a "breaded with a nice tartar sauce" fish.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Here Comes Summer

Well folks, this will be the last update from the Mystery Meat files for a while, as I am now officially off work! Ahh, the lazy hazy crazy days that stretch before me now...

Last day wasn't too bad. I actually had to come for a full day, instead of my usual three-hour shift. First thing in the morning, we began packing sack lunches. Rows upon rows of brown paper bags: insert PBJ, bag of chips, apple slices, carrots, cheese sticks. Rinse, repeat.

Then on to the cleaning. Now, while I'm sure my faithful readers would just love a blow-by-blow recap of this, I'll just mention two of the highlights.

One: we threw away two hundred pounds of cheese. Really, I counted. Apparently someone didn't rotate the stock properly, and cheese that was supposed to be fine all summer was apparently last year's cheese. It wasn't a "science experiment" by any stretch, but it was visibly freezerburned.

Two: I got a free chemical peel, I think. Commercial ovens suck to clean. I wore gloves, but it was still impossible to avoid getting some cleaner on me as I scrubbed, and within half an hour I did indeed have a couple of sores on my arms just above the end of the gloves. And for the higher ovens, I had to stand on a stool and reach waaaaay in, with my ample fanny sticking out like some off-kilter homage to Pooh's fateful visit to Rabbit's house. I got oven cleaner in my hair, even. Given the chemical burns on my arms, it's a wonder that didn't give me an interesting new do.

During all this, lunch time arrived and we had to stop cleaning periodically to pass out sack lunches and ring up kids one last time. I was very lenient, given the circumstances...though I wasn't specifically permitted to do so, I waved through the few kids who didn't have lunch money. It's the last day, it's a sack lunch that will be otherwise thrown away. Who cares? Mrs. Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day!

And so my lunchlady adventures have drawn to a close for the time being. I shall leave you with this little tidbit, from the white-board notice I was asked to draw up to remind the kids (in yet ANOTHER way) to pay up their accounts during the last week of school.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Mrs. Grinch Redux

For the last few weeks of school, the credit allowance was removed. With about three hundred dollars in negative student account balances on the books, there's been a real push to get the kids paid up before the summer vacation. Ergo: from May 15th until the last day of school, charging was absolutely, positively not allowed. Any kid who did not have enough money to pay up front for lunch got a milk and one of those dreadful wafer bars.

I confiscated many lunches. And they did not take the new policy well.

One kid cried. Inconsolably. I explained as gently as I could that he did not have enough money. I explained that he would still get a milk and a peanut butter bar, which would certainly keep him from starving until three o'clock. And when he brought in lunch money tomorrow, he would surely get a nice hot lunch.

But no. He took a few steps away from my register, laid his forehead on a table, and began to sob. And there was NO talking to him. I tried, but I couldn't even get him to lift up his head. Teachers came over. No luck. This went on for a while. They did at least eventually steer him away from the register and out into the cafeteria area, and I don't know what happened from there. But wow.

But that was rare. For the most part, it was hard to feel too bad about it. Maybe my Grinch-y heart is hardening somewhat. It's amazing though, just how many of the chronic offenders - kids who claim they just really have trouble getting the money in, are always riding that negative limit and then bring in just enough to continue getting lunch - only needed to be given the alternate lunch once. Next day, there was a check from mom, with enough money to cover whatever was left on those final two weeks.

One kid got aggressive. Not physically...just aggressive in that boisterous, entitled, I-can-abuse-customer-service-people kinda way.

"What do you mean?" he ranted, "I can still charge! You always let me charge a couple lunches!"

Me: "No, I'm sorry. It's been the policy since May 15th. I can't allow any student to charge."

Him: "Well nobody told ME!" Right. You missed the letter home to every student in the school. And the notice read on the morning announcements not once but several times, both before and after the deadline. I don't think so.

He paced, searching his repertoire. "Well still, I didn't know I didn't have any money. You didn't tell me I had no money!"

Again, um, no. Keenly aware that it can be easy to lose track of such things, I've made a point since the 15th of telling children as they pass through my line: "You have two/one lunch(es) left on your account, you need to bring in some money soon." "That was your last lunch, sweetie, please bring lunch money with you tomorrow or I can't sell you a hot lunch." I have the information right there. On a big screen. Which the children invariably look at as they check out, largely because they like the fact that their picture is on it, but still.

I held out the bar. He practically batted it away, snarling, "If I can't have my lunch, I don't want that. I'm calling my Mom. I'm going to tell her about this." And off he skulked, leaving me to quiver in my apron over the tattling I was about to receive.

When he came through my line the next day, he slammed a fiver down on the counter in front of me. "I have money today. I'm taking my lunch. I won't have to call my Mom."

I treated him to my most witheringly unconcerned look. "That's so very nice for you."

Not the most mature response, I know. Hey. He started it!

Saturday, June 2, 2007

When Songbirds Turn Deadly

I complain about other drivers, I do. There was no denying that fact when I commented one day on a courteous driver who did me a good turn and Duncan piped up from the back, "So, you're NOT the only person in town who knows how to drive?"

But I generally complain about drivers who are obviously bad. The ones who speed like crazy, then tailgate. The ones who feel the need to slip in and out of narrow openings in traffic, changing lanes like a hummingbird with ADD. The ones who are continuously and purposefully making dangerous driving choices. However, when someone cuts me off, makes a poorly timed turn, otherwise causes one of those sudden moments where I have to slam on the brakes - I take it in remarkable stride. Because I know that even good drivers have occasional flashes of stupidity...and I definitely include myself.

I decided to stop at a small shopping center to run an errand while on my way south to do the weekly grocery shopping. This center - 99 percent of the time I turn left to get into it, on a green arrow, then turn right to head back north to my town. Since I still had business further south of town, I turned left into the shopping center...then on my way out had to get into the left lane again...which, from this angle, had no green arrow.

The light changed to green, and in a moment of inattention and force of habit, I promptly proceeded as though I had a green arrow.

When I noticed the head-on I was about to have with an oncoming minivan, my first split-second thought was "What the hell is she doing?" As I slammed on the brakes to avoid her, my second, epiphanic thought was Oh my God, I'm a moron and I almost hurt someone.

But I didn't...and after correcting course and completing the turn, I continued down the road, face burning from embarrassment and engaging in a self-directed tirade that consisted largely of "stupid, stupid, stupid..."

So lady, if you're out there - I'm really, really sorry. I swear I'm usually a better driver. But sometimes all it takes is a moment of inattention, a flash of temporary stupidity, and I'm just glad I didn't manage to seriously ruin the day for both of us.

On a side note, it was a weird day for driving in general. Continuing on toward the grocery store, I found myself caught in a major slowdown, caused by - I am not making this up - a horse-drawn funeral procession. On a major state route, where traffic is normally going 65 miles per hour.

On the way home, I found myself at a red light beside a truck blaring very loud mariachi music. The occupants (there were five or six crammed inside) began hollering for my attention, and when I looked, most of them were pointing to their friend in the backseat with an air of "Eh? Eh? How 'bout it?" and making all sorts of gestures. "Roll down your window!!" they yelled.

"I don't think so," I mouthed back firmly and went on my way, but I couldn't hide the fact that I was smiling. Hey, it's nice to know that, sweaty and tired, wearing a ratty old hippie blouse and a do-rag, I still merit a little drive-by sexual harrassment. I don't care how offended a girl acts; she always likes the reassurance.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Ahhh...Young Love.

Or maybe: "Ahhh! Young Love!" It's a tossup.

My little man's best friend is a girl. And a bit of a tomboy at that. Talk about your '80s high school movie.

And they are inseparable. So much so that they had to be, well, separated this year, class-wise: they were so disruptive in the first grade that the teacher made absolutely sure they were assigned to different teachers for the second. Always talking to each other, always passing notes, whispering, sitting together at lunch, and so on. But the truly funny thing about their relationship? It's also a rocky one. She thinks he's insensitive; he thinks she gets offended too easily. He can be infuriatingly argumentative; she's a master of the Silent Treatment (this drives him insane).

I got to see a lot of this firsthand last year. Having no job, I decided to volunteer a couple hours a day in his classroom...making copies, helping kids with their math and sight reading, and just generally helping maintain order. Time and again, the same scenarios played out.

Enter Chloe, stage right. "Duncansmom, I'm not talking to Duncan!!" Though the teacher always referred to me by "Mrs." and my last name, the kids permanently labeled me "Duncansmom" anyway. She stalks off dramatically.

Enter Duncan. "Mom, Chloe won't talk to me! I accidentally elbowed her and I didn't MEAN to she was right behind me and I didn't know she was there!"

"Well, did you explain that it was an accident?"
"Yes."
"Did you tell her that you're sorry?"
"Yes!!"

"Well..." Really, what can I do? I shrug. "Give her time then, baby. If she's going to be mad, she's going to be mad." He stalks off in turn, mumbling, "Girls!!"

And so it goes on to this day, though they no longer disrupt class time. Just last week I was informed that, due to an altercation on the playground, Chloe was in fact not speaking to him. He has learned roll with it a bit more, be patient and wait for her to cool off; however, the chalkboard suggests that it still aggravates him a bit:


Oh, these tender moments.

I wonder...how many more grades before she's his 'girlfriend'?

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Field of Daydreams

A few months ago, a paper came home from school announcing sign ups for baseball through the city recreation department, and Duncan expressed an interest. I was uncertain - he's never played team sports before, and I wasn't really sure if it would be his cup of tea. Not wanting to be a pushy mom, I filled out the application and the check, then sat down with him and explained the ramifications. This is a commitment to a team. It was his choice whether to sign up, but if he did, I was going to expect him to see it through. I gave him the envelope, and he chose to put it in the mailbox himself. And then, the frustrations ensued!

Duncan Disorderly is (a) gifted; and (b) an only child. He has little experience working in a team situation. He is accustomed to being good at things right away. New concepts and skills tend to come easily, and when they do not, he gets frustrated quickly and will often attempt to quit rather than risk seeming less than perfect.

At the very first practice, after swinging away fruitlessly at several pitches, the boy walked off the field. There were tears. There was anger. And he was totally "QUITTING BASEBALL!!!"

At the third practice, I was informed that they were "using the wrong ball" with him. Apparently, they have a special heavier, deadlier baseball that they use when it is his turn in catching practice. He simply would not accept that all baseballs were standard. He'd been hit by the ball a couple of times, and though he was no worse for the wear and not even bruised, he was "QUITTING THIS STUPID TEAM!!"

I gotta say, I was very discouraged at this point. As much as I did not want to subject him to forced misery throughout the summer, I had to stick to my guns. He had understood the commitment, and chosen to accept. "You have to see this through," I told him. "After this season, if you don't want to sign up for baseball ever again, I'll still be proud of you for trying this." The look I got was withering. Then, after a few weeks of practices, the games began.

Coach Pitch baseball with eight-year-olds has got to be the most informal sporting event I have ever attended. The coach, as the name suggests, does all the pitching, and "three strikes you're out!" seems to be replaced by six, seven.....eight....oh heck, let's give the kid one more chance, he'll hit it this time. Given that this could lead to a neverending inning, the kids are generally encouraged to take one base per hit, and innings end when each kid in the batting lineup has had a turn. And near as I can tell, they don't keep score. Fine by me, but some parents actually got a bit irate.

"Look at that," said a mother beside me, after the last batter hit a fly ball that was caught near first base. "He's out. Why is the coach letting them all run home?"

"They're having a good time," I said. "That was the last kid, the inning's over. They've all got to come back anyway, and they're not keeping score."

She puffed up angrily. "Well, we are!" Whatever.

And my kid? He didn't do too badly! Not the best kid on the team by far...but getting a solid hit at bat and getting to run bases while I cheered did wonders for his attitude about this whole baseball thing. I do wonder if he believes he volunteered to play in the 'floatfield'. I could never quite suss what position he played. Shortstop, perhaps, but at various points in the game he seemed way closer to third, or second, or even to the far outfield, generally striking up conversations with other players, or examining the grass, or off in daydream land.

Still, he's happy now. Coming up to me after the game, trailing more dust than Pig Pen, sporting his City Recreation baseball cap and a shirt that had his number on the back and the team name "XYZ Dental" on the front (oh yeah - athletic sponsorship!), he slung his bat casually over his shoulder and gave me a gap-toothed smile that melted my heart.

"That wasn't too bad," he said. "I guess I'm kinda looking forward to the next game."

Friday, May 25, 2007

The Tell-Tale Wafer

With today's shift now over, we have a mere SIX days of school to go, which puts us in a 'clearance' mode of sorts. With the exception of products like condiment packets and some canned goods which have a long shelf life, most everything has to be gone by June 5th. On that day, whatever remains will probably be divvied up the way it was over Spring Break.

Yesterday, it was free juice pops...everyone who came through my line was entitled to a free grape juice pop, no matter what they were buying. Today the ice cream came out, to be offered as a side or as an a la carte item for purchase. Fortunately, due to an recent aggressive campaign of notes and calls home, most of the kids now have enough money on their accounts for the remainder of school year and can afford the occasional extra, so the Side Swap Pileup wasn't too bad today. But there were moments!

The Chutzpah Award today goes to a little snip of a 5th grader who came through with one side and two ice creams, only to find that he did not have enough money for an extra. So he handed me the side - a cup of Nilla Wafer pudding - and tried to take off with his two ice creams.

"Hold it," I said. "Umm. Have you been eating this?"

He stopped, then reluctantly shuffled closer to the register. "What? No."

"Well....where'd the Nilla Wafer go?" Each cup had been filled with banana pudding and garnished with a Nilla Wafer. He had handed me a cup of banana pudding, garnished with an obvious little wedge-shaped dent...and a lot of crumbs. He briefly looked at me like a deer in headlights, then recovered and gave me a noncommittal shrug.

I swear I could hear crickets chirping as I looked at him, then the pudding, and then again at him, hoping he would 'fess up and make the honest swap. But I'm guessing he took my hesitation for uncertainty, because when I finally set the pudding on his tray myself and retrieved one of the ice creams, I saw a look flash across his face that distinctly telegraphed: Dang, she didn't go for it. His pal behind him in line chuckled as he walked away defeated.

Oh yeah. Score one for the Decreasingly Gullible Noob Lunchlady.

Friday, May 18, 2007

When come back, bring pie

For a man who loves to tease that our child is the mailman's son, my husband sure has a reliable little protege at times.

The other night, I was IM'ing back and forth with an old friend, who happened to mention during our conversation that his wife had just brought him a slice of pie at the computer. I relayed this tidbit of information to my own spouse when he idly asked me who I was chatting with.

"Where's my pie?" he asked.

"I don't have any pie for you. I only said that my friend has pie."

"I heard 'pie'. I think you promised pie."

Flash forward to last night. While making dinner, I realized I had forgotten one important ingredient and would have to run to the store in the middle of cooking. (sigh) I let the boys know I was making a quick trip to the store. "You're getting pie too, right?" queried my husband.

"Ermm...."

"You mentioned pie last night. You got my hopes all up. Need pie!"

Duncan perked up, as if on cue. "You're getting pie?!"

"I didn't say that! I never promised pie!"

Duncan, with great vaudevillian flourish: "What's that? You promised PIE?!"

Partners in crime, those two. Pie, anyone?
(P.S. Bonus points if you recognize the title reference.)

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Blackout!

What a day! When I arrived for work this morning, it became quickly apparent that the power had gone out just before I arrived. Who knows why. In my little town, periodic mystery blackouts are the norm...particularly in the spring, and in totally arbitrary patterns. You can lose all power and sit fuming in the dark as the sounds of your next-door neighbors merrily sniggering at Everybody Loves Raymond waft through their living room window. It could be out for two minutes or two days.

I proceeded to the cafeteria in darkness to find the kitchen crew all sitting together under an emergency backup light, discussing possible courses of action. In the adjacent kitchen, multiple trays of frozen pizza (why do the 'interesting' stories always occur on Pizza Day?) sat in near-total blackness beside defunct ovens, and fridges full of milks, fruits and salads were slowly and inexorably thawing. The obvious and reasonable solution would have been to send the kids home - no telling how long the blackout would last and this was going to be a real problem - but word came down from the main office that we would not be closing. Scramble time.

So, let the chaos commence! Obviously the 'hot' food wouldn't be feasible today, so it was time to dig through the stores for ready-to-eat options. The PBJ Uncrustables, the tortilla chips, the snack packs. The hamburger buns, thrown together with sliced turkey from the rapidly warming fridge to make deli sandwiches for those kids with peanut allergies. All sorted through with flashlights and transferred to the gym, the only large room with natural lighting. And gym class was in progress as we tried to sort this out. Honestly, a stray ball missed my face by inches as we set up our long line of tables along one side of the gym.

When lunch began, the setup consisted of a check-in table near the entrance, where we attempted to collect names from the surging swell of children before sending them to the buffet line to pick up their items. On the other end of the gym, students with their trays of food clustered together on bleachers or sat together on the floor to eat. It was stiflingly hot, noisy and crowded, and I was vaguely reminded of a refugee camp. Or a prison camp. Hold on to yer spork, kid. Any kid loses his spork gets a night in the box.

The power finally returned near the end of the lunch rush, and I was faced with a new challenge: take the hastily scribbled lists of three different cashiers and enter all the lunch information normally taken over a two-hour period into the computer by hand. Ten single-spaced pages of student names - spell name on touch screen, pull up account, make the appropriate transaction, rinse, repeat. And though I had strongly urged them to have kids hold off on money transactions until tomorrow, they had also accepted cash and checks in big disorganized piles. And the system often behaves in erratic ways when it's been shut down unexpectedly. When all the names were finally entered about half an hour after my shift should have ended, my register informed me that I was approximately $500 short. Later it recognized my transactions, but mixed breakfast reports in with lunch and told me I was at least fifty dollars short. Then thirty-eight dollars. At one point I had to leave to pick up my son from school, take him home, and then return because we could not leave until the totals balanced.

Two hours after the end of my shift, we had it down to seven cents short and sagely decided that it was an acceptable variance. Anyone who begrudged me that seven cents would have found that I would happily give them the seven cents myself...probably nasally.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Easy bein' green

Recent developments in my life have encouraged me to take a look at my own footprint on the world, and ways that I could be living a little greener. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a die-hard environmentalist and probably never will be. But there are a lot of little things that make a difference, things that don't take much extra effort on my part, and I find that I feel better and I'm having fun doing it!

Things I have learned:

There's more than one way to recycle. With a little online research and a little creativity, I've been finding fabulous ways to steer clear of the trash can, although I think my poor husband is a bit baffled by the weird new collections that surface here and there. Plastic grocery bags are now piling up beside my side of the couch, as I've learned to cut, loop, and twine them into balls of plastic "yarn"...to crochet! I recently used a bunch of said shopping bags to crochet - ironically - a shopping bag. (But this one is strong and reusable, so there.) Glass jars get rinsed and reused for all sorts of purposes, bits of twine and twisties and colored paper go into the crafts drawer...even corn husks have been saved and dried for projects, and hollowed out light bulbs will make great ornaments for next Yule, or even little planters for small herbs and flowers. That's right folks, I'm turning into the ghetto Martha Stewart.

There's more to recycle than I thought. Sure, the city supplied me with a small recycle bin to put out beside my regular garbage bin, and I did generally put my soda cans in it. But it never occurred to me just how much else I could be putting in it until I began to think more before tossing. All the paperboard - cereal boxes, Pop-Tart boxes, soda cartons. ALL the cans - tomato sauce, coconut milk, canned veggies, emptied in the course of preparing supper all get rinsed and thrown in. Milk jugs, plastic creamer bottles from my coffee addiction, yogurt cups. I may have to ask the city if I can have two bins, as it's getting to be a big game of Tetris each Garbage Day, trying to cram everything into the wee recycle bin sitting next to my big half-empty garbage bin.

I need fewer chemicals than I thought. If McGuyver were to go into the cleaning business, he'd so call me up for tips. Turns out a few choice ingredients will create just about anything. Keeping a few basics such as vinegar, baking soda, and washing soda in ready supply, I can create everything from soft scrub to disinfectant spray to furniture polish, all environmentally friendly and very inexpensive....and goodness knows I've got the empty jars and bottles to mix 'em up!

It's not as far as I thought. I used to take the car everywhere. If absolutely necessary, I would walk or bike Duncan to school. It was hard, the first few times, convincing myself to take the bike instead. But with each errand I've run on my bicycle I've had the same thought as I arrived, namely, "I'm here already??" Just a few days ago, in fact, when I found myself low on a few groceries, Duncan and I helmeted up and hit the street. We arrived home a short while later, my basket filled with sodas and a few groceries (all packed in my crocheted plastic grocery bag!), energized from the ride and having a great time together.

I'll say it again, I'm far from perfect. I still buy my sweetener in those convenient little individual packets...and go through lots of 'em. I'm still overly fond of paper towels. I still can't convince myself to invest in seven-dollar 'energy saving' light bulbs when the cheap old 60-watts sit on the shelf beside them at four for a dollar...but I might, if I ever get up the gumption to buy one and see how much longer they really do last. And I do not compost. But the little steps go a surprisingly long way towards making me feel a bit better about myself, and towards working a little exercise and Fun Mommy time into my busy schedule.

And of course, with gas at $3.20 a gallon these days, the nod to my inner Scrooge doesn't hurt either.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Java Jive

Life can be delightfully unpredictable at times. Grab car keys and library books - check. Get to Chess Club meeting on time - check. Become part of random film student's final project - um, check??

Coffeehouses - the Denny's of the next generation, but even more prevalent. My fellow Gen-Xers and I spent our youth in the back booths of Denny's; crammed together in groups of five, or ten, laughing and gaming in a swirling nicotine haze, stretching that unlimited-refill cup of coffee until five in the morning and generally annoying the hell out of the waitresses (you had to tip well). Today's kids have the coffeehouses...but unlike Denny's, they have spread and multiplied to ridiculous proportions. You wouldn't see three Denny's restaurants in a one-block area. You wouldn't see a Denny's booth at the grocery store. Or in the library.

Not that coffeehouses are a new phenomenon, I know. They've enjoyed a certain counterculture appeal since the 60's, and I confess I also passed quite a few youthful evenings in them...usually real hole-in-the-wall joints, furnished with aging overstuffed couches and filled with music and smoke and students playing chess and carrying on all sorts of discussions. But these coffeehouses are bright, clean and corporate - upscale smoke-free establishments with wireless Internet access catering to quiet students individually absorbed in their laptops. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess...but it's a different universe.

Ah, but I digress. Time to veer away from the "kids today" speech, because frankly I sound old.

I am a coffee addict, but I am not a fan of the contemporary coffeehouse. Still, Duncan was now engaged in his chess battles, and I had forgotten my customary mug o' coffee from home, so I popped over to the little coffeeshop in the library. I had been in line for a minute or two when a woman approached the counter, identifying herself as a film student, and asked the employee if she could film him making the coffee. Oh, and could she film me buying the coffee? And interview me about coffee? Well, why not!

And boy, she wasn't kidding. She disappeared briefly, and returned with lighting equipment, tripod and camera. She even miked me. And so I sat and sipped my overpriced ambrosia, casually answering questions about why I like coffee, my coffee drinking habits and frequency, what brands of coffee I favor. After regaling her with tales of my all-day addiction and my Zen love of the percolating pot and the ritual of preparing and sipping coffee, I think she was surprised to hear that my favorite coffee is "the cheapest". But really, I'm a gourmand, not a gourmet. With all the sugar and creamer I pour in there, it really doesn't matter too much anyway. Spider Robinson would disavow my existence for saying that.

The funniest part? I didn't exactly plan to be filmed today. The coffee-phile she interviewed in that brightly lit yuppie nook appeared in geek glasses, burgundy hair askew, pentacle necklace and a Beatles' Rubber Soul shirt. A relic of the 'classic' coffeehouse if I've ever seen one.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

I Scream, You Scream

Spring has sprung! It's mighty warm out...and even warmer in the cafeteria. I've taken up stashing a few water bottles of my own in the freezer near the register. I'm also finding that I 'need' things from the walk-in freezer more often these days...don't ask me what, but I'm sure it'll take me a minute to find it! But most of all, the advent of warm weather means that we are now serving ice cream with lunch far more often, which often leads to what I call the Side Swap Pile-up.

It works like this. For what is called a "Type A" lunch, a kid needs to choose one entree, two sides, and a milk. That gets charged the standard lunch price, $2.25. A la carte or extra items beyond those get charged separately. This can be particularly important to the free and reduced kids...buying a Type A lunch costs them either nothing or forty cents, whereas individual items cost anywhere from fifty cents to $1.75 apiece.

The small freezer is at the end of the line, right near my register, and contains the ice cream. In today's case, there were two kinds: ice cream sandwiches and frozen juice pops, identified as a side by a small sign beside them. So the kids would get their entrees from the server, choose two sides along the line, then reach the freezer and spot the ice cream. They would then decide to swap out one of their sides for an ice cream, but instead of returning the other item to its proper place would merely set it on top of the freezer or on the edge of the milk refrigerator. Between rushes, I had to clear away the ever-growing piles of juice cups, carrots, apple slices, etc....the Side Swap Pileup.

One audacious young man cracked me up, forcing me to quickly put on my "this isn't funny" smirk to avoid encouraging him. He slid on up to my register with one entree and TWO ice cream sandwiches. "Oh no," I told him. "You need to put one of those back and choose another side. You need two different sides." After a moment's consideration, he returned one ice cream sandwich and hopefully pulled out...a frozen juice pop! Sorry kid, but nice try and thanks for the laugh.

And so the afternoon wore on, until finally I was checking out my last kid of the day...there was a sudden POP, followed by a sticky rain, and *poof* my computer died. What on Earth? I traced the source...as the server began shutting everything down and putting food away, she had slammed the lid on the milk refrigerator. Which happened to have a small container of orange juice resting on the lip. Thanks to...you guessed it...the Side Swap Pileup. The ensuing eruption of juice splattered both me and my last student, and tripped the surge protector on the computer.

I could make some sort of awful pun at this point, pertaining to the juice...pop....but, I'll abstain. I'm above that sort of thing, you know.