The Ripping

Egads! Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has another stinging insect in her chapeau.

I think I can unequivocally state that I have eaten my last school lunch of the year. It's bait and switch time. Before 8:00, I look at the menu and decide if I'm bringing my lunch the next day. By afternoon, I have to check again. I'm onto those tricks. But it was what I received today that made up my mind.

The menu advertised a chicken sandwich, mashed potatoes, and peaches. I scurried into the cafeteria ahead of 80 stampeding freshmen. The cooks already had five or six trays laid out for the students to grab. The few that were in front of me did, indeed, grab them. Normally, the teachers state to the first line cook what they want. Then a fresh tray is readied. We pay more, you see. Adults pay $2.80 per tray.

I announced that I would like the chicken sandwich, please. That means I did not want the other everyday choice of rectangular pizza. The cook had a tray in her hand. I said I preferred the chicken without the bun. Normally, they ask teachers if they want two. Not today. In fact, she whipped the bun off that sandwich and passed the tray along. She used the bun on the next sandwich for a student.

The second cook plopped a dab of mashed potatoes. AND THAT WAS IT! For $2.80! A bare chicken patty the size of a McDonald's kid hamburger, and a dollop of mashed potatoes. I could have chosen a tennis-ball sized apple, or a stunted banana for my dessert. But I didn't want to fill up, you know. And I was seething mad about the lack of diced peaches. I swear, that banana was so small that, had I greeted a long-lost paramour on the way to my table, my paramour would not even have thought to ask if I was just glad to see him. Because the banana in my pocket would have been unobservable.

I was flabbergasted. I told the ticket-taker, "Pickin's are slim today!" She murmured her concern.

"There's gravy! Don't you want gravy? Or a banana?"

"No. I'm thinking I should have brought my lunch today."

"Isn't that terrible?"

She knows. She knows that kids can't survive on that tray of, at most, 500 calories. I could hibernate through the summer and be none the worse for wear. But I'm sure some of those kids could feel their stomach digesting their backbone by 2:00.

 I sat down in shock. A lunch buddy came in and looked askance at my tray. Another sat down with a chicken sandwich, spoonful of mashed potatoes, and half pint of chocolate milk. I may not always appreciate my chicken-nugget-with-feather, colored-water-with-a-teaspoon-of-vegetables soup, and shredded-lettuce-with-three-cheese-shreds salad...but I normally don't think I'm being ripped off. Because if there are two kinds of fruit in tiny condiment cups, we teachers can have both. And there's usually at least green beans or corn. And sometimes a tasteless Bosco stick! With marinara sauce! But not today.

Would it have hurt to slice open a drum of corn? Or put five grapes in a tiny plastic cup?

I wash my hands of it! And I almost washed the tray for them. Because I seriously wanted to lick up the crumbs of oily breading that fell off my see-through chicken patty.

To get my money's worth, you know.