Lunch is Served!

Who’s hungry?

For those who read YAB on their lunch break, what we have today is what we call “relevant journalism.” (This may be a first.) Your meal is on the literary menu, as I devote today’s column to the history of lunch. Not the origins of the mid-day dining occasion. Just mine in particular. (What do you think we are? Wikipedia?)

The reason this topic shot up the list o’ ideas was that I, Chris Condon, have created LUNCH. My traditional habit is to meander downstairs around noon to assemble a salad or sandwich for 3-5 dollars. Well you know what? I can eat for cheaper.

I brought my lunch. And it was delicious.

Every once in a while, I’ll get proactive as a measure of cost savings and purchase the required materials to make my own mid-day meal. It’s really not that difficult on the procurement end. A visit to the deli counter adds about 12 dollars and 4 minutes to your grocery trip, and assuming you have already frequented the bread aisle, you’ve got sandwich fixins for about 8 business days. The hard part is convincing oneself to get up 5 minutes earlier in the morning to fit “sandwich assembly” into the morning routine. Trust me, it’s like trying to pull a cement truck with your teeth. (or so I’m told. By Rob Harford.)

So you spend time trying to figure out what is so hard about making you lunch the night before, YAB takes you down the Memory Lunch Line Lane.

Kindergarten – Granted, kindergarten is only a half-day of school, so most kids probably end up eating when they get home. But just in case 18 5 and 6 year olds couldn’t make it from their cereal bowls to the triangularly-cut PB+J, the administration instituted a snack time at roughly 10 am. It was a great opportunity for the milk drinking kids to realize my allergy and mock me in a public forum. I should have fasted.

Elementary School – Here’s how the lunch ticket works. First, your parents make the choice that you will buy lunch over bringing it. Second, you must show a special aptitude for losing things, therefore convincing them that there’s NO way you can handle dollars and coins to pay for your meal. Third, mom has to write you a check, where you must go to the cafeteria office in the morning and exchange it for a roll of 10 bright pink tickets, that will be later redeemable for rectangular pizza and juice. Fourth, pray to God you don’t lose the roll of tickets.

Middle School – From a payment perspective, it’s roughly the same protocol as K-5. One curveball, however. For 8th grade, I had a retainer that I had to wear 24/7, except when eating. Now eating with a retainer in your mouth is as comfortable as sitting on a small charter jet for me, so I would place it in a napkin on a tray. Ok, surely you see the moral here. Kids, DO NOT put any valuable, especially those meant for dental correction, in napkin on a tray that you plan to throw in the trash. Affix an alarm or a buzzer to that thing, would ya?

High School – At SHS, I only had lunch my freshman year, and I brought my lunch (but not without the occasional Twookie purchase.) The rest of the years, I took an extra class and had to be granted permission by the choir teacher to eat during the first 10 minutes of class. This was fine, with the exception that Justin Morea would steal the apple and beat it to a bloody pulp in a game of catch (which he doesn’t do well.) By senior year, I had worked the system. Of my 8 classes, I got permission from 6 different teachers to eat my lunch. (I got a no from the class with all the computers, and no from the gym teacher.) This begs the question – do you take this opportunity to:

A) Stretch your lunch out, eating a little in each class
B) Pick a different class to eat lunch in each day of the week
C) Pack 6 lunches

Discuss.