The Force Feeding Mandate

The Pony thinks outside the box. He can't be corralled by arbitrary rules.

On the way to school this morning, he let it slip that every student is now required to go to the cafeteria for breakfast. I knew that this year, breakfast is fed for free to the Elementia, Basementia, and Newmentia masses. And thanks to Genius, I knew that even if kids only want a milk or juice, they have to take a tray. What I did not know is that at Basementia, every student must take a tray.

The Pony is perturbed that such an interlude in the cafeteria cuts into his reading time before the bell. He gets dropped off forty minutes before the start of school. He sits in the gym in hog heaven, ignoring the mayhem and feeding his brain.

"So now you have to go to the cafeteria?"

"Uh huh. Everybody has to."

"Well, can't you take your book and read it down there?"

"Yes."

"Then what's the problem? When everybody goes to the cafeteria, just take your book. What's the difference between reading it in the cafeteria, or reading it in the gym."

"I have to stop reading to go through the breakfast line."

"Oh, so you're eating breakfast now."

"No. I just go through the line."

"Why would you go through the line if you're not eating?"

"We have to."

"That doesn't make sense. You might as well eat. It's free. And it's wasteful if you throw it away."

"I don't throw it away. I go through the line, put a box of cereal on my tray, walk out, throw away the tray, and put the box of cereal on the teacher table. The I go back up to the gym and read."

"Why don't you eat. They have all kinds of stuff. Sausage/pancake dogs, French toast sticks, sausage biscuits, honeybuns, toast..."

"No. Not when I go through. Only cereal."

"That doesn't sound right."

"Well, it could be because I go through early. The cooks are still sitting at the teacher's table, eating."

"What are THEY eating?"

"Don't know. Don't care. I get done as fast as I can so I can go back to the gym and read."

"Would it hurt you to eat the cereal? You take it in your lunch every day."

"Yeah. But I already ate breakfast at home. So why eat again?"

I don't know about that boy. Most 8th grade boys would love to eat a second breakfast. My little Pony prances to his own drummer.