Yesterday my 4 year-old daughter and I had lunch at my other daughter's school. This is always an interesting experience. Yesterday proved to be no different. I am glad that my little first grader still thinks it's "cool" to have her dad come have lunch with her. Who knows how long that will last. Probably not real long if it goes as smoothly as yesterday.
First of all, it was pizza day. When I was in school that was almost a cause for celebration in my mind. School pizza rocked. However, my stomach turned a little when I saw the 2009 version of this classic menu item. The pepperoni (I assume it was pepperoni) seemed a bit discolored. Perhaps that was due to the pool of grease that gathered atop the cheese. This pizza was quite shiny. If I scraped the cheese off and rolled it into a ball, I feel confident that it would bounce. To say the least, this was not the pizza I recalled scarfing down as if it were God's edible gift to us.
After I got past the appearance of the main attraction, I turned my attention to the side dishes. It was an odd selection to pair up with pizza: carrots, grapes, and Jell-o. I am 34 years old, but I can say with almost certainty that I have never in my life eaten those foods together in a meal. It was almost as if the dietitians did it as some sort of joke. "Hey Margaret, let's see who can think of the oddest menu selection. The winner gets to take home the extra corn dogs."
Seriously? Pizza, carrots, grapes and Jell-o? I had to laugh, but the kids all seemed to think it made perfect sense. From an aesthetic point of view, the meal was quite vivid with colors. I especially liked how the carrots and Jell-o mirrored each other with their orangeness. Beautiful.
And then there were my precious little girl's classmates. Oh boy. For the most part they were well-behaved. Very talkative, but well-behaved nonetheless. The center of attention though was the boy sitting directly across from us. For the sake of anonymity, I'll call him "Roger". Roger was a very active child. By "active" I mean "quite possibly could have been raised by wolves." Sweet Moses.
As soon as we took our seats on the very small benches, it was as if the curtain went up, the lights turned on, and it was now showtime with Roger. He and his buddy sitting next to him, "Phil", entertained each other for the 20 minute lunch period. I viewed Roger to be Johnny Carson and Phil was Roger's Ed McMahon.
Roger asked me if I could guess what grade he was in. "Hmmm, I probably could given the fact that you are in my daughter's 1st grade class," I thought to myself. But I played along anyway.
"You're probably in the 7th grade, right?" I asked.
"Nope. I'm in the 1st grade," he responded.
"Wow, you look very mature," I told him. I'm pretty sure he had no idea what "mature" meant by the quizzical look on his face.
Having heard our conversation, another little girl piped up, "What grade do you think I'm in?" she asked.
"Hmmm...I'd guess you are in the 5th grade."
"Ha, nope!" she said defiantly. "I'm in the 1st grade too!"
At this, Roger looked at me and said the following, "This is the 1st grade table. Everybody at this table is in the first grade. Even my butt crack."
Okay, well thank you for that, Roger.
Phil giggled with approving delight at Roger's revelation. I expected to hear an Ed McMahon-like "YES! You are correct, sir!" but it never came.
Their comedy routine was interrupted by me as my arm caught on the 4 year-olds chocolate milk carton and it spilled all over the table and incidentally her sweater. I knew without question I was going to hear about this from Roger and Phil. Fortunately for me though, Roger was more interested in his declaration to Phil that he "had just farted." This proclamation kept the duo preoccupied while a teacher's aide came over to assist with the clean up.
"We spilled some chocolate milk," I told her.
"What happened?" she inquired.
"Uhh, okay, I spilled some chocolate milk," I said more accurately.
After the clean up was over, the lunch period ended and we said our "good-byes." My 1st grader kissed me and added a sweetly spoken "I love you, Daddy". She scurried off to join the rest of her classmates as they exited the cafeteria.
And we too filed out then. With one arm, I held a sticky, chubby little hand and in the other, a balled up soggy sweater.
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