Since I was a kid, I have always thought that the lunch box was a interpretation of status. The softer the bread, the more money the kid had. The cool thermos with Rainbow Brite on the front, the little spoon that some parents stored in the corner nestled behind a cool holiday themed napkin. A nice little pudding cup with a turkey sandwich with the PERFECT amount of mayonnaise and crisp lettuce. Cool items like pop rocks or new kids on the block drink box....UGH..there was nothing like opening that lunch box at lunch time and allowing your friends to feast their eyes on what your parents packed for you.
The moment was like a symphony....the thud of the lunch box on the cafeteria table. The slide of the chair with your foot, the slick move you made into your seat....and then the unveiling....the opening of the lunch box. your fingers slowly unclipped the lock, and with one quick "flip" your lunch box would open to a round of oohs and ahhs. The next few minutes was like a round of cards at the Paris in Las Vegas. "Whattaya Got there Johnson? " A slow pause around the room, eyes darting at each other in hopes of being the winner. "Well I gotta box of Dunkaroos, and a HiC Ecto Cooler (complete with a picture of the ghost from ghostbusters)." The next kid slowly opens his lunch box and peaks in quickly, shutting the box before anyone got a peak. "Oh yeah, well I will see your Hi C Ecto Cooler and raise you one star crunch, and a half eaten ding dong still in the foil wrapper". This could go on for quite a while. The kids would bartar back and forth while I sat in the corner, careful not to look at anyone. I was mortified that they might catch a glimpse of my lunch and ask me what I had.
Hey Sarah, whatcha got over there? (note, in my mind these kids all speak with tough New York accents)
I should back up just a little bit. Back in the day, most of my friends had parents with normal jobs. The kind where they woke up at 7am with their kids, made them a hearty breakfast of waffles with hot syrup out of this cool ceramic container. They would all sit together at the table, the father would drink coffee, one hand holding a rolled up newspaper, the other hand clutching a mug that said "worlds greatest dad." The mother would drop a last minute apple into the brown lunch bag and kiss the kids on the forehead, then stand on the front step and wave as the bus scooted their offspring to a world of higher education.
My life was not like that.
at all.....
I would wake up about 30 minutes before the bus came and make a bowl of cereal. My dad would be snoozing in bed as he was up bartending till 2am. My mom would be banging on the door of my brother's room telling him to get up. I would sit at the table alone, peering over my malto meal at my cabbage patch kid sitting in a toy high chair. "Hyacinth Madeline, how is your breakfast?" My feet, barely touching the floor, swinging front to back. Slurp.....slurp.....(eating breakfast) Bang bang bang....door is going to come down soon if he doesn't unlock it. A very comotose brother emerges from the bedroom and brushes past me, pushing my doll to the floor. A shocked look appears on my face as I turn to yell at my brother. "Paul, you are gonna get it. MOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!" My mother, looking very tired and ready to donate us to goodwill on her next clothing drop, comes around the corner and hands us both a large brown grocery bag. "here, your father made your lunch for today. The bus will be here in a few minutes and I have to go to work.
The door to the garage would pull shut and my brother would head back to bed. I stared at my lunch for a long time and lug it over to my back pack. No matter how you tried to fold this thing up, there is no way to hide a lunch that has been placed into a large brown piggly wiggly bag. Not the cool little brown lunch bag...but a large brown bag that once held five lbs of red onions and bouillon cubes. I did not need to look at it, I simply just new that there was nothing cute or trendy or (for the love of GOD) within a 7 year old's portioning. I crushed it as much as I could into my back pack and headed out to the bus, caring very little that my brother would have to wake my father and have him drive him to school. "serves him right, huh Hyacinth?" I picked my cabbage patch kid up off the ground and set her on my bed.
Back to the cafeteria, I knew that the unveiling of my lunch would be a big thing. I catch my brother's eye five tables away as he is surrounded by the other boys in his class, all drooling with envy at what my father, the chef, has prepared for us today. I hold the bag close to my feet, hoping that nobody will be able to get a view of the all you can eat buffet I am about to unleash.
The first item, half a head of iceberg lettuce. Not cut into tiny pieces, or even torn by hand and placed into a tupperware container with a lid, but a HALF A HEAD OF ICEBERG LETTUCE. It has been sliced in half and the outside of the lettuce is still clinging to dear life on the 22 feet of food service film he has wrapped it in. (in my house, it was never saran wrap, but the industrial 3 foot long box of food service film.) Next, a styrofoam coffee cup filled to the TOP with ranch dressing. No lid, but plastic wrap covering the top with a red rubber band holding the FOODSERVICE FILM in place. (how in the hell did that not spill?) Next, 6 dinner rolls still all connected (shocked there is no bread basket in my bag) with 45 pads of butter thrown into the bottom of the paper bag. Next on the menu, cooked broccoli in a Styrofoam to go container. And not just SOME broccoli, but enough to feed a small country. I turn around slowly to see if there is a line of homeless people standing behind me with trays. Continuing on through the bag, I find a fork and a steak knife (real, not plastic) a real linen napkin and 12 wet naps. Then, the main course, the staple of every meal I would see come from my father for the next 20 some years...a king size end cut of prime rib!! And wrapped, none the less, in food service film. I look up in horror at my brother. He has his napkin tucked in the collar of his shirt and clutching the knife and fork in his hand. The boys are all a big pile of envy standing by his side. My brother chuckles like a gluttonous fool and shoves each piece in his mouth as he winks at me and points the tip of the knife in my direction. I want to unwrap the foil pieces of butter and shove them into his gym shoes.
I clutch the side of the prime rib and roll it out like I am showing someone expensive jewels from a red velvet cloth. The process takes about 20 seconds and the juice from the prime rib is starting to escape from the film. I grab the cloth napkin and try and block the juice from traveling to my classmates cute little turkey and sprout sandwich on rye bread. Her sandwich comes in a ziploc bag. She has frosted animal crackers and hostess cupcakes. I look like a server at an all you can eat buffet.
There are many memories I have of my school lunch as a kid. Always, my father would prove to be the extremist when it came to preparing our lunches. I would find things like, to go containers with hamburgers and french fries, complete with pc packets of ketchup and mustard. Some of the kids had little thermos' with soup tucked into the corner of their lunch boxes. I was given a container of chicken soup that once had 15 lbs of strawberries in it.
When my kid started taking lunches to school, I made it a point to only buy the cool lunch boxes with the most popular characters on it. I bought stock in ziploc bags and small thermos containers. I took special care in planning his lunch so that the unveiling to the other kids would be worthy.
The funny thing is, looking back on those lunches, I never knew how much time and effort my dad had put into making them. No other parent had slow roasted a prime rib for 10 hours in an alto sham along with peeling potatoes that could feed the population of Boise. If I could go back today, I would throw that bag on the lunch table and WITH PRIDE set up that lunch spread my father had so carefully put together.
This year for Christmas, instead of a new lunch box, I am considering buying my son an industrial box of food service film. It does wonders for your character.
