Dine And Dash Thursday

WooHoo! Turkey dinner today in the cafeteria. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom even took a TRAY! Which put her forty cents in the hole on her lunch account.

Yes, I have not eaten a school lunch for several years now. But today I broke down, over the smell of wheat rolls baking in an industrial oven. Or roasting on an open fire. Because the fire alarm went off, sending us into the wild chill yonder all willy-nilly, us without coats, unsure of whether we were about to be charred. The kids took off for the softball field, though I stopped them about 50 yards from the building to see if the other teachers were taking their kids all that way. "Guess so," they said. Thank the Gummi Mary a lunchtime companion happened to be visiting that end of the building, and offered to take my old red gradebook and supervise my horde. Her efforts were greatly appreciated, what with this blood-thinner poison eating away at my knee joints. I might have made it to the field, but it is doubtful that I would have made it back. I am terrible on uneven surfaces such as the Mount Everest descent and ascent that would have been necessary.

Anyhoo...the fire that wasn't was after lunch, so I guess the rolls can't be blamed. Funny thing about those rolls. When I read the menu to my class at the end of the announcements, they cheered the turkey and mashed potatoes, but when I got to ROLLS, they booed and hissed. "But that's what smells so good in the hall right now," I emphasized. "You were all just saying how great the hall smells."

"Have you ever had the wheat rolls here?"

"No. I bring my lunch."

"That's why you think they might be good."

I found out what they were talking about. Those things are dry. Like cotton batting. Worse than a McDonald's breakfast biscuit. I daresay I would have choked three times, but for the bottle of water I had at the ready to soak that cotton and wash it on down my throat. Three bites. Three chokes. That wheat roll was out of the rotation. Thank the Gummi Mary I had that water bottle. I sure couldn't swallow the fat-free chocolate milk. Yuck. I found that out when my mom and I went to the biscuit and gravy fundraiser last month.

I hope heads don't roll. The turkey was not a baked bird like we had eons ago when lunch was good. It was turkey medallions, which are chunks of turkey that come in a can with enough brine to choke a horse addicted to salt licks. AND the salt shakers were out again! I am quite sure the children exceeded their allotment of noon-time sodium today.