If you're ever in a school for long enough, you will inevitably hear about the cafeteria food. Most of the negative hype comes from books and movies, which depict the food as shapeless, scary blobs, sometimes moving, sometimes hairy -- but never anything could legally be classified as "food."
Seriously. What is this?
Pretty much all students talk about the cafeteria food -- how That Girl Over There found a bug in her food, how The Head Football Player swears his chicken was served to him raw. I'm sure I joined in on the gossip at some time during my schooling, even though I've never had a negative experience regarding cafeteria food. Granted, that's partly because I brought my lunch nearly every day from kindergarten through 12th grade. Everyone does it (and isn't that as good a reason as any to do things?), but what they don't think about is the fact that, behind the scenes, people are actually cooking the food for them. And that the food has to be approved, the kitchen inspected, the procedures rehearsed and repeated -- until the product is fit to be served. And people forget to think about the hairnets behind the wall where we deposit our sticky, gooey lunch trays.
I know this, because my mom is a lunch lady (or a cafeteria worker, if you're PC). She cooks for other people's kids all day before coming home and cooking for her own family -- as do all of the other lunch ladies. In my schooling/student teaching/substitute teaching experience, people rarely stop to talk to the cooks of the school food. But more people should take the time to do so.
When my mom left her job at the high school cafeteria for a middle school, six or seven members of the football team came up and gave her a hug goodbye. members of the football team. At a high school. Another student gave her a box of chocolates as a parting gift. This was a shock to me, as I have never seen people talk to lunch ladies about anything other than their account. I can only hope the middle school students treat her just as well.
I've had lunch ladies bail me out on two separate occasions. Once, when I was in high school, I left my lunch in the gym. When I went to retrieve it I found that it had been eaten. WHO EATS SOMEONE ELSE'S LUNCH?! Since one of my high school lunch ladies was the mother of my brother's best friend (some serious name-dropping), I asked her for help. She let me charge my meal so I wouldn't go hungry. Then, just last week, a lunch lady did me a solid in a much less desperate situation. I had simply noticed that the day's lunch was something out of heaven: Chicken Fingers and Mashed Potatoes. I had cold spaghetti in the teacher-fridge, but I wanted the chicken. I asked if there was any way at all that I could charge for the day and swore that I would pay her back the next day. She agreed -- but on the following day refused the three dollars I offered.
It's little things like this -- hugs, the occasional free chicken tender -- that help to restore my faith in humanity. There are people out there who really do care, who have a heart of gold. I just never noticed how often that golden heart beats below a standard-issue set of scrubs and an apron.
Take the time to talk to your lunch ladies. Their jobs aren't easy, and so few people show gratitude for the meals these ladies (and, yes, sometimes men) cook for them. Be the football player, high school royalty who cares more about others than his reputation. Those lunch ladies are someone's mother, wife, sister or friend -- be nice to them!
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