Mom made us bag lunches for school every single day. She did not want us to be like those poor kids whose parents gave them 55 cents for government lunches. No rectangle pizzas for us. The only thing we stood in line for was milk for a nickel, never chocolate. We had rules.
Early on we lugged lunch to school in those bulky square metal lunch boxes with TV shows or sports figures on them. Susan had some kind of peak 1970’s green Earth Day lunch box made from pure plastic, no doubt now buried deep in a landfill somewhere. I think Jeff’s was Roberto Clemente. My lunchbox had Raggedy Ann and Andy. I liked Andy but on the lunchbox they came as a pair, and having Ann on my lunchbox was not winning me any friends. Later on, blessedly, the boxes were replaced by brown paper bags, like normal people.
Each day our brown bags contained precisely four plastic baggies - one with a sandwich, one with vegetables, one with fruit and one with cookies of some sort. It was the golden age of the Food Pyramid and we were building our bodies accordingly. The sandwiches varied but were never toasted, so the bread got soaked through and scrunched together in a kind of pile. More like casseroles than sandwiches by the time lunch rolled around.
One day, Ian Douglass took a banana slice from my lunch, and flicked it up into the air with a plastic fork. The banana hit the cafeteria ceiling tiles and stuck fast. We cheered, staring up at the achievement, and the banana slice did not move. It stayed there, literally for years. We’d see it every lunchtime. It’s probably still there.
But once my lunch was consumed, the ritual was not over. Mom insisted that we bring home our battered lunch bags with all four used plastic baggies inside, cream cheese or peanut butter smears notwithstanding. Then she would repack a different lunch the next day, so that often our sandwiches accumulated multiple days worth of tastes and smells. But we were not going to eat like those 55-cent ragtag kids.
One time in third grade I glanced inside Lala Small’s desk. Right beside her pencils sat two quarters and a nickel stacked neatly together, shiny and tempting. Without even thinking I stuffed them in my pocket. I stole her lunch money right out of her desk. That’s the only time in my life I can remember stealing actual money. My conscience pricked me the rest of the day. But not enough to keep me from buying a fudge bar at lunchtime.
I still remember that. I remember that sin against Lala and the system. But even more a sin against gratitude. How many kids had a mother who made them bag lunches for school every day from first through twelfth grade? I did. That’s what Mom was like.
I was embarrassed by the prunes in the plastic baggies - I lied to my friends and mumbled that they were a chocolate treat Mom made.