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Georgia Garvey
Creators Syndicate
Sometimes, I pretend to be a lunch lady.
I volunteer for shifts helping out at my boys' elementary school, work that entails helping the other lunchroom workers get set up for the rush, dishing out the food when the kids get there, and then helping restock the fresh fruit and veggies before I take off my apron and gloves and sit down next to my boys in the lunchroom while they eat.
The lunchroom supervisor, the chief of the kitchen and serving area, is tiny with a powerful, smoke-tinged voice. She's a fierce woman who doesn't just like everything "just so" --she demands it. She'll snap at any of the parents who hand out two baskets of nuggets to kids who ask for "doubles" of the entree.
When we're helping, we also need to make sure we put enough room between the salads so that the kids (or, actually, the teachers) can grab them without spilling. We always refill the fruit from behind instead of from the front, to keep it fresher. If too many kids start to line up at the register, it's time to hold off to let the cashier catch up. It's all very specific.
"You gotta wait right there," she'll growl as she rushes past to drop off another tray of French toast sticks -- breakfast for lunch day can get crazy.
Some of the parents seem put off by the supervisor's harsh demeanor, but I love the woman. Clear expectations, delivered confidently, for easily understandable reasons: She's a dream boss.
She doesn't have time to perform a complicated corporate dance with her words.
"Wrong," she'll say, showing you where to wash your hands before you put the gloves on.
She does a good impression of a dictator but occasionally slips up and reveals her softer side, the qualities that make her at home in an elementary school cafeteria.
"That's all you're going to eat?" she'll bark at a kid who only has strawberries on her plate. "Come on. Do you want a turkey sandwich?"
I also like working the lunch shift because it keeps me up to date with what's normal childhood behavior these days.
"Whose mom are you?" a girl will often saucily demand. Once, a girl asked if I was my son's grandmother. It was the gray hair, I know, and she was just a kindergartner, but still.
When I was that young, I was terrified of adults. I would never have dreamt of questioning one on any topic. But kids now aren't scared of grown-ups -- the girls especially. They believe you're there to serve them. Usually, they're right.
"Don't give me that burned one," one of the boys might say, pointing at a piece of pizza he finds overly browned.
The sass throws into sharp relief the polite children, the ones who say "please" and "thank you" in cheerful tones.
Once I'm done in the serving area and I go out to the tables, I get to eavesdrop on the conversations the kids have and even participate in some on occasion. The other day, I listened to my son and his third-grade friends talk about the plague. They wanted to know what it was like, who got it. I didn't have my phone, so I just did a lot of fancy guesswork.
"Maybe a third of the time?" I answered uncertainly when they asked how often it was fatal.
They wanted to know if any diseases were fatal 100% of the time. I couldn't think of any, but they were looking at me so expectantly.
"I guess if you got your head cut off, that would always kill you," I stammered.
"But that's not a disease," my son's friend said pointedly.
As my children get up to leave, I always feel a little sad saying goodbye.
I get to live in the lunchroom for only so long, both an inhabitant of that world and not, and then I'm gone until the next time.
"Thanks for helping," the women at the front desk say as I turn in my badge.
"No, thank you," I always say back.