Lunch Box Essay

My head has been a rambling mess.  It’s never a good sign when I’m jolted out of my not -so- sound sleep at 5AM to pay bills.  Or at least attempt to beg, borrow, and steal and hold back the bill collectors for another month.  Maybe after Christmas I will figure out what to do. 

It’s stressful. 

I try and cope.  Writing has been my escape and therapy.  It’s been very good for me these last years.  So I have decided to challenge myself.  I am attempting the “Write of Passage” challenge.   The challenge this week is to to write a “Lunch Box Essay”… here goes.

“Raise your hand if you will be buying lunch today,” the teacher asked every morning and, to my dismay, I never got to be counted.  My newly divorced, full time working mom had to stretch to make ends meet and have a roof over our head.  Who was I to burden her with asking for lunch money?  Neither of us had perfected our morning time management skills and our new routine, yet.   The consequence of mom making it to work on time, was my growling tummy at lunch. 

My lack of a cheerful morning disposition usually resulted in wrestling with a hairbrush and screaming about how “stupid” my hair was, in lieu of making my own lunch.  On good hair days, I proudly compiled a bologna sandwich and some potato chips that I would smash onto my sandwich and wrap messily in cellophane that I would shove in my Holly Hobby metal lunchbox.  Most days, though, that luxury would not be.

As kids grabbed their lunches off of the shelf  and loose change out of their coin purses to head toward the feeding ground, I stood in line- empty-handed- trying to be inconspicuous, hoping that the kid near me didn’t notice mecatching a whiff of his thermos full of chicken noodle soup.      

The smell of oregano and garlic floated up the stairwell as I made my way down to the buzzing cafeteria.  As I dragged the warm tray that smelled like dirty dishwater along the cold stainless bars, my nostrils flared and tried to absorb all of the aroma they could take in.  Little pellets of drool caught air out of the corners of my mouth as I passed up the pasta, longingly.   I solemnly reached for my bowl of pickles and a milk and thanked Carol for the 17 cent loan- like she’d given me so many times before.

My too small hand-me-down uniform barely covered my legs on the cold yellow chair and caused friction burns and embarrassing noises every time I shifted as I sat to eat the pregnant woman’s feast before me.  Inevitably,  I would be given more hand-outs… a Snak Pack pudding, an Oreo, crumbly remnants from a bag of Bugles… I was the parochial school’s lunch charity and they were good to me.  It was humiliating, but I was grateful. 

I wonder what I owe Carol with interest? And if she still is handing out loans, I could use a slightly larger one right now.