Friday, September 02, 2005

Brown Bag'n It

Okay... I am still alive, but life has been a tad overwhelming and I have not had time to write. Actually I have had very little time or to do much these days. I recently took on a new position at work which has kept me busy. I have been fighting off a wee bug for a few weeks now and I am just whacked. I have however mentioned through out my days how I need to blog this and I need to blog that, so lets begin.


I was discussing with a few friends and then my hubby about kids lunches and what kids bring to school now a days. I was appalled to see mini half sized pop/soda cans with the simpsons on them being sold at the grocery store. They are not marketing this product to me. These sick bastards are marketing cheap quality high sugared pop to kidlets.

This got the conversation rolling and we started talking about what we use to bring for lunch when we were kids.
I remember mom use to pack us the healthiest lunch possible (nice try mom, but I still ended up fat with good eating habits). I remember we would all sit in the lunch room and start to disassemble our lunches.
  • One sandwich consisting of fillings such as tuna, cheeses, vegetables, homemade chicken salad, lunch meats and the ever feared egg salad. Egg salad always ensured lots of personal space during the lunch hour. Note that all sandwiches consisted of whole wheat or multi-grained breads only. If it's white it aint right!
  • One tetra juice pack and not good juice like fruit punch or tropical island. Nope, we got pure apple and orange juice. Sometimes, if it were on sale you got a grapefruit juice, hopefully not paired with the egg salad. Mom was cleaver though and froze our drink boxes and wrapped them in foil to ensure a frosty beverage by lunch. This also acted as an ice pack as mom was fearful of botulism.
  • A snack, okay we'll call it that. A piece of fruit, sometimes 2 if they were small or we had been extra good.

That was it. That was lunch. Now we were poor and prepared fancier fun lunches were out of the budget for 3 kids. Besides mom would never dream of feeding us that crap. She was a stay at home mom, her job was to provide nutritious meals for us.

So I am 10 and I am sitting at the lunch room table watching others unload their lunches. I am overcome by jealousy and rage. The girl across the table has leftover pizza, a coke, packaged cookies, a twinkie and a handful of sweet sweet candy. She probably has a God Damn pony at home too. She is eyeing my ghetto lunch and I know that there is not chance of a trade. What would I offer her...My pure juice...It's a 100 percent!

Of course I go home and when mom asks how was your lunch I put up a stink. Marsh's mom gives her pop, and cookies and treats in her lunch...Ma she had pizza! I get the look of, "you ungrateful bitch" and the "Well if you want to eat what Marsha eat then maybe you would like to go live with Marsha. I bet Marsha doesn't have a mom at home who cares what she eats and I bet she has a mouth full of cavities".

I guess mom felt a little guilty during the next grocery shop and decided to bend the rules a little and allow for snacks.

Yes....Snacks! So excited I practically rip my lunch bag open to find... Low fat pudding. Ah yes the healthier snack. The lunches kept coming and day after day the new snacks would appear. Fruit cups, plain granola bars, fruit jerky, homemade rice crispy squares, and then the ultimate burn... Muffin logs. Muffin logs are my pet name for Hop and Goes. They have been out for ever, but have recently made a come back. Now they come in chocolate chip, and other wonderful flavours that I never became familiar with. We got the banana and nut...f'n sick, and if you think you can trade that shit up you have another think coming.

I don't blame mom, I wouldn't feed my kids shit either, but I again am sitting at the lunch table as an adult eating a fairly healthy lunch while others lunches look so much better.

In my mom's defense she did give us better (?) treats around the holidays. Occasionally (and I mean occasionally) we would find a flakey in our lunch. A flakey...Jesus Christ, I didn't know if I should cry or wet myself. I felt like standing up and yelling, "What I have here is a Flakey, yessss! A God damn flakey, thank you Jesus, a flakey! "Hey pony girl, what do you think of my ghetto lunch now...a Flakey. " I got a Flakey, you cannot have one".

Aside from the Flakey there was the questionable upgraded snacks, which were nowhere close to a flakey. The handful of nuts in a ziplock baggy, the 2 or 3 rockets at Halloween and the plain potato chips. What the hell is with plain chips. I know that lot of people like them, but for me they need to be covered in a large amount of Helluva Good Dip. I just don't understand plain. I would never go into a restaurant and order the plain chicken with plain veg and a plain baked potato. I am sure that some would be in the world of flavours why???? I digress.

So what seems like a simple meal for a kid can really make and impact on their lives and even scar them for good. Mom you did your best and I thank you for it, but I'm having McDonalds for lunch.

Lunch Lady Out.

3 comments:

Kim said...

Man, I don't know what a Flakey is, but I want one... badly.

My mom packed our lunches too, and I don't recall ever getting a snack in it, unless you can count fig newton's as a snack. Ugh, I still hate those damned things.

Kim said...

Ha! Just read Mark's blog! CONGRATS!!!!!!!!!

Kim said...

just checking in... everything ok?