Update

I am seldom so happy to be wrong!

Given my heartbroken post last week and the heartfelt replies I received, I simply must report this.

My ten dollars was found!

I've been on the serving line since the incident. Shocker. My supervisor assured me that they were simply shorthanded and she needed me on the line, but I knew better. I'd screwed up. And it put me into a deeper funk over the whole thing.

So this afternoon, as I cleared away uneaten food and Cathy counted up her cash at the end of shift, she noticed something odd in the drawer. Something really far back. Something really wedged, almost totally concealed in the wheeled workings of the pop-out register drawer. After a little finagling, she pulled out...a ten-dollar bill.

Wouldn't you know, I'd checked the drawer. Multiple times. Lifted out the plastic cash divider and looked under it and everything. Believe me, I will exhaust every option before coming to the conclusion that I've been betrayed.

All I can figure is that most of the scenario remains the same. I was in the middle of separating and counting the cash, and I did wander too far from it for a minute without remembering to lock up. But rather than the bill being lifted from my drawer by sticky fingers, it caught on something as the drawer was closed and re-opened, and somehow got pulled to the back. Where, after several openings and closings, it became thoroughly wedged in the back wheels of the drawer.

Cathy ran her figures without the extra ten first, and balanced. My heart soared. "They didn't steal from me!"

"Yeah, well," she said. "Don't think they wouldn't. There are plenty of kids here who would, given half a chance."

Well, she may be right. But today, my friends. Today they are exonerated, and all is right in my world.

Shanghaied Sawbuck

Honestly, I'm not sure if it's a blessing or a curse.

As I've said, I generally think the best of people. I really do. It's not naivete - I've been around the block a time or two - I seem to be hardwired to be naturally trusting and optimistic even when I know better. The upside to this is a generally sunny disposition and low blood pressure. The downside is that when people DO disappoint me, it hurts. A lot.

Anyway. My day.

Now, I've worked at Jack-in-the-Box. I've worked at Wal-Mart three times over the years. Hell, I've worked at Wal-Mart in the Electronics Department at Christmas. And every time I've run a register, it's balanced to the penny at the end of my shift. And I started the same way at this job, too. But lately my totals have been screwed up a lot lately, usually because of a mathematical error on my part, causing me to hold everyone up while I recount and check deposit reports until I find where I don't agree. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe it's the fact that the ventilation system broke and it's been around 100 degrees in the cafeteria the last several shifts I've worked. Maybe I'm just going senile at the ripe old age of thirty-something. But it's making the perfectionist in me scream.

Today, I said, I'm done. I will be triply careful, and I will balance the first time. And I paid meticulous attention to my counts. So when my total came up TEN DOLLARS short today, I knew I'd finally balanced to the penny. Because I also knew precisely that I was missing one ten-dollar bill from the currency. I'd walked away from my drawer for thirty seconds after my shift and forgotten that I hadn't yet locked the door where the kids come in to my line - something I usually do as soon as the last student is gone. And then there wasn't a ten where a ten should have been.

One of the children stole from me today.

Fervently hoping that I was wrong, I dashed back to my terminal to look for the ten. Perhaps it had fallen on the floor or under my register. I got down on my knees and scanned under everything; then still on my knees, I lowered my head to the floor and cried.

We recounted everything to make sure it really wasn't a miscalculation, and then my supervisor said she'd document the missing ten for me. I really don't care. It was ten dollars. I would gladly have replaced it from my purse. Heck, I probably won't even be at this job next year. I cried because I was just so hurt and disappointed that any of 'my kids' would steal from me. I know better than to believe every one of them would pass up the opportunity to swipe money from my drawer...but I still believed it.

Sometimes, I really wish I didn't think so highly of people.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!)

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.

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!

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!