Yesterday we had
freebies! Free samples of future cafeteria lunch entrees. The giveaway had been
hyped for two weeks. “Come and try our new food choices! Make your preferences
known!” Not in so many words. But it was announced each day to get the pupils
whipped into a frenzy. I could have done it with just two words: FREE FOOD.
The lines went around the
block. Or at least from the snack bar around the trophy case. Some of my colleagues, okay, every one of my colleagues, went to the snack bar line and cut in to grab some grub. Not Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. A true lady, she waited until the line diminished. Timed her walk from the teacher table to the snack bar so that she was last in line. Until a student with the same idea got behind her. Then a couple more.
I stepped up just like everyone else. Got my shot glass of rice topped with Tandoori Chicken. Moved along to the meatball sub, a tiny sandwich one meatball long. And then it happened.
THE WENCH HANDING OUT BAGEL BITES GAVE ME A HARD TIME!
"I guess I'll give you one, even though you're not a student."
At first I thought she was just joshin' me. I chuckled politely. Then she went all hard-core on me. "ARE you a senior?"
"Oh, yeah. I'm a SENIOR all right. A senior of another kind."
Seriously. Why not just yell out, "You old hag! What are you doing in a line sponging up free food meant for kids? You fat cow! I do not want to give you one of my inch-square whole-wheat bagel pockets filled with cream cheese and cinnamon."
"Well, you need to take a survey and fill it out like everyone else."
Which I planned to do, once I got to the stack of surveys at the end, past the Gorditas topped with beans because my colleagues and the pupils had scarfed up all the chicken ones. I suppose that elderly-hating wench had not noticed seven other teachers cutting in line to load up on her wares. Because they all looked so youthful, I'm sure, and dressed like the kids. She didn't say a word to any of them.
Wench needs to realize that teachers buy lunch, too. And pay a lot more than the students for the same stuff.
The consensus of the Newmentia Lunch Time Think Tank was that the chicken was a hit. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom also had a thought containing the word hit.
4 comments:
That BBW (Bagel Bite Wench) apparently--in her mind--did not have a square to spare.
Stand up for the poor, downtrodden teachers. You're right--teachers pay more and get the same teaspoon of peas and the same dollop of peaches. Open up your window and shout, "I'm mad as not-heaven and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Sioux,
I try not to draw attention to myself that way. Unlike those who take a camera into a gas station chicken store and come within a frog's hair and a chicken's tooth of being escorted out.
Long, long ago, in a different time and place, I was a young nursing student. I went to school under a government program called the Manpower Development and Training Act. I had to qualify academically and financially. I was a single mom of two with the minimum of child support required to be paid. Our nursing instructor worked hard to make sure that her students could have as many perks as possible and we all got a free lunch on the days we did our clinical training at the hospital. One would have thought we were stealing the food. The workers in the cafeteria seemed to resent every morsel we ate. Face it, a hospital with student nurses gets a lot of free labor! The grunt work, the nasty stuff.
Maybe she used to work in a hospital cafeteria .......
Kathy,
She acted like I grabbed her by the neck and reached my hand down her throat to take that food out of her esophagus.
I think she wanted some leftovers to take home, and we were only the first of three lunch shifts.
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