Media and Design: Punch My Ticket, Lunchlady

And then Chris Farley says something really loudly and falls down. And we all smile.

My child-thing Harrison had his first school lunch yesterday. It's something he's been asking for off and on since school started. With day after day of un-masticated healthy packed lunch coming back home, I finally said OK. He, of course, completely enjoyed the experience and gave me a full report when he got off the bus, "I ate healthy food today! I had fruit and chocolate milk and a sandwich with green salad stuff on it." "Lettuce?" "Yeah."

Yes, that's a full report from a 6-year-old. Imagine how talkative he'll be in the teenage years. (Oh, the expectant quiet.)

So he enjoyed it and the chocolate milk was a given. Hell, it's what I choose when I eat lunch with him at Einstein Elementary.

The whole school lunch thing got me thinking about my own experiences with school lunch. At Lincoln Elementary in Western Nebraska, I lived a block away from school and took my lunch pretty much every day. I didn't have a regular lunch ticket until junior high, I rarely bought lunch in elementary school. My Snoopy (and later, Transformers) lunch box had a variety of sandwiches depending on what was leftover and what my dad was taking for his own lunch....cold meatloaf sandwiches, picante loaf, chopped ham loaf....yeah, I grew to really hate each of those! Ugh, just the thought of a chopped ham sandwich right now makes my stomach do a flip flop. The greasy pressed texture. Nasty.

Of course I looked enviously at the rectangular pizza slices or "soy burgers" and after enough whining persuaded my mom to give me a dollar on the bi-weekly pizza day. THAT, was awesome. It was freedom from my parents, it was joining a crowd, it was the community of being able to trade pears for a cookie or vice versa (like that would happen - cookies rule!).

It was a right of passage. Just like learning to ride a bike or getting the car keys.

Granted, I bet I brought home a lot of barely eaten meatloaf or chopped ham sandwiches, and that was likely, easily my mom's motivation to fork over a dollar on pizza Fridays. AND granted, in Redmond you see kids bringing a Trader Joe's buffet in their lunch bags; enough to feed at least four children. But in all, there is a huge sense of community that comes with buying your food and enjoying it with you peers who also bought food.

Think about your first job, or your current job. There are people who bring their lunch, and they tend to hang out together or enjoy some quiet time alone. And then there are the people who go out or order in, as a group, publicly exchanging money for food, and hanging out together, building that rapport.

Even as an adult, it's been a occasion of sorts when I've ponied up to buy lunch with people. It's been a moment to enjoy freedom and community and all that good stuff. And there is a difference between sharing thoughts on butter chicken all around the table, vs being the odd man out with a bologna sandwich while others Ooooo and Ahhh over butter chicken.

So school lunch for the 6-year-old....I'm all on board with that now. Especially if he keeps coming home with happy news of "I ate a healthy lunch and I didn't get sent to the office today!" (insert beaming young smile at the statement of these two accomplishments.)

I am participating in a November blogesphere event over on Tuesdays With Deborah. November is National Novel Writing Month, so several of us have committed to blogging something like 100 words a day. My apologies in advance