Ridiculous Memories of the School Cafeteria
At my job they’re considering adding a cafeteria for the employees. Needless to say, I’m fully in favor of such a move. The building is way out in the middle of nowhere, so we have to bring our “lunch” (8 pm), or drive ten miles to Burger King.
And my lunch usually consists of two pieces of white bread, a cuppa two tree slices of turkey, a slab of American cheese, and a breakfast bar for dessert. Fukkin yum!
On Wednesday nights, our Friday, we usually have some stuff delivered from a pizza joint located god-knows-where, and that’s pretty good. But a full-blown cafeteria, only a few yards from my desk? Man, count me in!
Of course everybody will say it sucks, that’s required. There will be jokes about food poisoning, and rumors of nose-picking “chefs” and the like. People are as predictable as a post-Starbucks assplosion… But will it influence me? No, it will not. I will be their best customer; my name will eventually end up on a plaque near the deep-fryer.
And all this industrial-food talk has got me to thinking about the school cafeterias I have known… I went to three public schools in my life: Dunbar Elementary, Dunbar Junior High, and Dunbar High. And I logged many an hour in all three cafeterias, if you’ll excuse my use of the word “logged.”
Here are some highlights, off the top of my head:
One day I was going through the food line at the elementary school, and a rather severe cafeteria lady eyed me suspiciously, and blurted, “Hey, you’re that boy who spit on my house!” Then she cut my pig-in-the-blanket in half, and only gave me 50% of it.
WTF? What kind of crazy woman uses a pig-in-the-blanket as a weapon against a fourth grader? It was a retaliatory move, involving a wiener in pastry!
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but if I’m going to be punished for spitting on a house(?!), then I’m spitting! I sat and schemed with Bill, and think I planned to eat an entire sleeve of Oreos before visiting the woman’s home. Heh. But, unfortunately, it was another project that never really got off the ground.
At that school we were allowed to go back for seconds, if there was food left over and we’d eaten everything else on our compartmentalized trays.
But there was usually some stuff served to us that wasn’t very good (like that slimy-ass spinach), so we figured a way around it. We ate what we liked, drank our milk, and put everything remaining inside the empty milk carton. Then we’d carefully adjust the top of the carton to appear normal, and go back through the line for the “good stuff.”
Sometimes our milk cartons were so tightly compacted, they weighed about three pounds. When we tossed them into the garbage, before leaving the cafeteria, there was often a loud THUD! as that bunker-buster hit bottom.
We never got caught, though. I bet kids are still using that technique today, in the very same lunchroom.
And speaking of seconds… One day there was a massive surplus of those little round potatoes they used to serve us. Know what I mean? They were round, and had no skin of them? Not bad!
Anyway, the cooks had way too many of the things, and we started having a contest to see how many we could eat. One kid had 36! I hit the wall in the mid-teens, I think, but plenty of others were in the twenties, or even thirties.
After news of our contest leaked to the teachers, and whatnot, they started asking us questions about it. But they were very sly, and acted as if they were amused by it all. “How many potatoes did you eat?” they chuckled.
And once they had the numbers collected, they dropped the bomb on us.
Every student who ate more than some arbitrary amount (13, maybe?) was marched into a room, and received a stern talking-to about gluttony.
Plus (get this!), we were forced to wear huge badges of disgrace for a week, made out of full-sized paper plates, designed to look like the face of a pig.
I’m not kidding… Across the pig’s face were the words NO SECONDS. We’d have to pin them to our shirts before going to the cafeteria, and sit there with pink ten-inch pig heads on our chests during the entire meal.
Hilarious. If they pulled some shit like that in 2009, dozens of people would lose their jobs, CNN would be there, and a team of counselors would be bussed-in to help the children cope.
Man, I wish I’d kept my too-many-potatoes badge… I’d like to wear it to the mall.
Also at the elementary school Bill and I were sitting there having our lunch one day, when some kid we called Shave sat down across from us.
He was an annoying little shit, always going on and on with nonsense. I remember him counting the coins in his pocket, saying, “One dollar, two dollar…” It didn’t matter what coin it happened to be, he called it a dollar. He bugged the hell out of us, on several levels.
And on this day Bill had had enough of Shave’s stupidity, and threw a fruit cup in his face. Remember those things? A little white paper cup, filled with fruit cocktail? Well, Bill tossed the contents of one directly into Shave’s face.
Incredible! I can still see that kid’s surprised expression, with heavy syrup dripping off his chin, and a peach cube sliding off his shaved head. And, once again, I don’t think anyone paid a price for it. Except Shave, that is.
I could undoubtedly come up with more stories, but need to stop. Maybe you guys can take over? Use the comments to tell us your memories of the school cafeteria.
Also, what was your favorite cafeteria food, and least favorite?
At the Junior High they had some kind of spaghetti casserole type of deal, with cheese melted on top. I loved that. But they also served a nasty-ass barbecue sandwich. It was kinda pink/beige in color, and had big white veins (arteries?) insinuated inside the “meat.” Unspeakably disgusting….
So, if you have anything on these subjects, we’d like to hear ‘em. Or read ‘em, whatever.
And I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
Filed under: Daily
FIRST HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
HAHAHAHA second!
Man, that picture of Hitler without the ’stache is scary. His eyes just pierce right into you with pure evil. The clean-shave look makes him perhaps even more sinister-looking, given that the moustache was kinda goofy-looking.
Hiya
Nickel
My high school used to serve some awesome beef turnovers. Ground beef wrapped in a puff pastry with nuclear-yellow gravy. I’ve been trying to replicate those things to this day. I’ve gotten it close, but not quite. I can’t figure if it’s the weird gravy or the mystery meat (horse? I dunno).
Favorite cafeteria food from school days: Creamed turkey on white rice. Man, that was good shit. I haven’t had it in about 35 years, but I still crave it. I oughta find a recipe and make my own.
Worst: Probably hamburgers, ’cause if you lifted the bun and looked at ‘em, they, like Jeff’s BBQ sammich, were grey and had bits of arteries (and chunks of bone, if I remember correctly) in them. Didn’t matter whether they tasted OK or not, ’cause you lost your appetite after looking at ‘em.
Apologies for the multi-posting today — I’m starting to feel like Shiny Rod.
Jeff – Saw this and thought you might like it since you like Hall & Oates.
shitmydadsays “What are you listening to?…I know who Hall & Oates are god dammit. It’s the mustache guy and the gay man.”
There was this kid in middle school, and later high school, who we called “Joe the Jap”. He was constantly in need of money and never paid it back. We all knew this. One time in the 6th grade Joe the Jap wanted $5. So I told him I’d give him the money if he’d eat a pack of Sweet Tarts and then use his finger to force himself to puke on the table we were sitting at in the cafeteria. He did it and we were all delighted. I considered vomiting to be the height of hillarity.
As the years went by we grew tired of simple vomiting and raised the bar to other things. It always seemed to happen in the cafeteria. When Joe started driving he was in even greater need of money (for gas, I guess) so he was willing to put on a real freak show.
One time we asked him to walk up to Mrs. Wyatt, who was the lady that took your dollar for lunch, and say to her, “I have to go to the restroom”. Then he was to stand there and piss his pants while maintaining eye contact. He got $20 for that stunt. He didn’t really get in trouble because he blamed it on a bladder infection (?!).
The all time best Joe the Jap stunt was when we convinced him to pull down his pants and shit on the floor during lunch. As kids from other tables started to notice they screamed in horror or laughed and it caused a lot of attention. The janitor lady ran over and tried to stop him but we kept telling him, “no shit, no money.” So white knuckled the table as she tried to drag him away and he was able to get off an 8″ turd. He got suspended for that one. But he was $30 richer for it.
Top 20, kiddies!
I can’t remember ANY meal from the Dunbar Elementary Cafeteria, except for the peanut butter sandwiches. I think I may have eaten over 1000 of them in six years there. Now, I hate peanut butter. I think I brought my lunch a lot.
On the other hand, I remember liking the BBQ sandwiches at DJHS. I would buy extra ones.
High school- I just remember drinking TJ Swan and premixed bottles of Tequila Sunrise for my lunch, in my car. Liquid lunch was the best.
Down to 285 pounds now. I may be overdoing the fish oil, cholesteral lowering, pills though, since I think the ten pounds have come out of my ass, rapidly, since I began taking them.
On IPOD right now- “Born Annoying”- Helmet
AngryWhiteGuy,
What kind of diet are you on? It sounds like you’re getting some decent results. You just take fish oil pills and eat less or what? I need to lose some weight, I don’t mind if it comes out of my ass.
I don’t remember eating anything at Roxalana Elementary but I sure wouldn’t complain, my grandmother was the cook and later Mrs. Settle. Why in heavens name did you eat in the cafeteria at DJHS? Bowling alley hotdogs or a fascheck run!! The only time I remember eating in the cafeteria at DHS was for breakfast after prom! Anything would have been good then.
Jeff, I can so see you and Bill (and a couple of others, I won’t name name Vincent and Jorge), getting even with the cook, but why waste a perfectly good package of Oreos?
The best were the pork egg rolls from Pinon Mesa Middle School. The rest pretty much tasted like deep fried turdlets.
i always loved the schools grilled cheese sandwiches. gubment butter and cheese. awesome! i keep trying to get my kids to smuggle one home but so far, nothing. i didn’t like the hamburgers though, something about them being soy burgers, before soy was “cool.”
I went to several schools growing up as my father was transferred many times. But one cafeteria in particular had a dessert called peanut butter confection squares. I even wrapped one up in a napkin and carried it around all day to let my dad taste it to see if he could duplicate it (he was a baker by trade). Since then, I found out it is kind of a “buckeye” cookie we yinzers in Pittsburgh get at weddings…. a peanut butter ball partially dipped in chocolate.
The other tasty dish I loved was called “beef manhatten”. Kind of a roast beef in gravy over mashed taters. Never inspected the beef close enough to see if it had veins, bones, hoof pieces or what have you. But then again, I would eat shit on a stick if it was dipped in gravy.
There was a kid at my school when I was in the 8th grade we called Larry the Duck. He was like in the 4th grade. We’d go around to all the empy trays and fill up an empty milk cartoon and give it to him to eat He would wolf it down. (He brought his lunch from home so it wasn’t like he was still hungry.) We didn’t have to pay him or threaten him or anything. It was disgusting. Nobody knew why he did it but you could count on him to do it every time.
When I was in High School my friend Jenny decided to shave her head. She was slightly crazy and she shaved it bald. We were in the cafeteria line and the lunch ladies were looking at her with disdain and she convinved them that she had cancer and actually cried. By the end of the line she had so much free food from them that we both ate free that day. Hee hee
Nothing good ever came out of the cafeterias around here. Nightmares include:
Sloppy Joes
Tater-tots (Steamed, mushy variety make me gag. Deep-fried and crispy is doable.)
steamed hamburger patties (too gray in color and rubbery to be real meat)
fruit cocktail or any other canned fruit
soggy fish sticks
opalescent lunch meat that allegedly was ham
canned peas and carrots
Bonus nightmare: digging through the trash, overflowing from the repulsive castoffs that no kid would touch, in search of my retainer. This usually ended with me losing my own lunch and crying crocodile tears so that the lunch lady would do the dirty work for me. Happened more than once. Apparently, I’m a slow learner.
No seconds allowed ever. Most of us just sucked everything down as quickly as possible so that we could get outside to play Tetherball or Four Square before all the spots were occupied. Tried to avoid Dodgeball after lunch because a bullseye shot to the gut meant projectile vomiting and wearing your gym clothes the rest of the day. Gotta love the short-shorts and tube socks of the 70s!
And back then, getting reduced or free lunch was so shameful that no one wanted to take the gubment up on the offer. Those who did were seriously ostracized. Nowadays, an inordinate number of children are on that program.
I never ate in the school cafeteria. The smells throughout the morning just nauseated me to no end. I can still smell that saurkraut. I went to Huntington High School for about 6 months in 1970. They didn’t even have a cafeteria. We got an hour for lunch and they actually allowed us to leave campus. Some days I went to the burger place across the street, some days I ate donuts from the bakery on the next block, or pizza from Gino’s (or whatever that place was called). It was great. Some students used the time to get their buzz on so the class following lunch was always interesting. In retrospect, I can’t believe they allowed this. I bet they don’t do it that way anymore.
Brynhildr: Oh!…the gym clothes back in the day! Wow..what a memory. Ours were a one piece little ditty; zipper front; solid navy blue on the bottom; white and navy blue stripes on top. Had to have the tube socks with nave blue rings at the top and white sneaks. We HAD to wear this winner no matter the size of the girl…no exceptions or substitutions.
In high school the cafeteria food they served sucked. But, they also had vending machines with warm things like jo jo’s, burritos, hot dogs, and corn dogs. One day my best friend bought a corn dog on a stick and sat at the table across from me and all our friends. He finished lunch first. After awhile he got bored and decided to blow the bag up that used to contain his corn dog. He went to pop the bag between his two hands for a loud cafeteria pop, but instead we heard a scream. He forgot to take out the condog stick and it went though his palm and protruded out the top of his hand stretching his skin like pee wee’s big top. We took him to the office with stick still inserted. That’s when he passed out. Ended up that he missed the bone and tendons. A couple of stiches and he was back at school the next day.
When I was in second and third grade, we only had what was called “hot lunch” once or twice a week. It was usually damn good, too. Thick-crust pizza with gooey cheese, deli-style submarine sandwiches, even vaguely exotic (to an eight year old) things like pasties and strombolis. It was all brought in by some local caterer the school had contracted with, and was very popular. During fourth grade, we were told we would be getting hot lunch everyday, and everyone was excited to be getting this delicious goodness on a regular basis.
But the school district pulled a fast one on us, and went with a different supplier. The new food was horrible, like little TV dinners only without the flavor: chicken cutlets that were about 60% filler, chili that tasted like heated catsup, bread slices that could be turned back into dough merely by rolling a piece of it between your fingers. The worst was the bland and cardboardish hamburger patty that was used in about two-thirds of the recipies. They would douse it in the aforementioned chili and call it a “Fiesta Burger,” they would serve it without a bun and call it a “Salisbury Steak,” they would put it in with some tepid spaghetti sauce and cheese and call it an “Italian Surprise.” Just nasty.
This food was quickly rejected by the student body across the board, and we were lectured about being a bunch of finicky complainers. Within less than a month, nearly everybody went back to bringing their own lunch. I don;t think I ever bought lunch at school again.
The only interesting cafeteria incident I remember was in 5th grade when a buddy started choking on something. He was actually turning blue. The teacher in charge tried giving him the Heimlich (probably a new method back then) and ended up breaking 3 of his ribs. The peice of food flew right into the face of a girl close by. She screamed and cried, and I laughed so hard I almost pissed my pants.
Favorite food? By far lil smokies and mac and cheese!
@Carla- gratz on your husband getting home safe. I got back last year and am in queue for another…joy.
This is another sign of growing up in a city in WV, verses out in the boondocks. I think it was not until the 7th grade that I went to a school with a cafeteria (that served food that is). I went to a lot of different schools; several of which do not exist anymore.
A wiener in pastry should never be used as a weapon! Good god man! Corndogs fall into that category! All pastry wieners are intended for love, not war!
I went to eat lunch with my daughter at her elementary school twenty-odd years after I managed to survive my own elementary school ordeal and I could have sworn they were still cutting up the *exact same pizza*.
When I was in the 7 and 8th grade, we had an open campus. It was the same school as Rich Rodriguez went to – as a matter of fact. I recall him knocking people in the head on the school bus.
I don’t have anything to offer regarding my days in the school cafeteria as a student, but I do have a story to share about being at lunch duty.
I teach at a high school, and about three years ago I was newly pregnant with my third child and had to patrol the cafeteria during my designated duty. I was queasy from the pregnancy to begin with, but when I saw a student put what must have equaled a cup and a half of ketchup in a bowl of chicken noodle soup to create TOMATO soup, I had to run from the room and barf in a nearby trash can. The smell in the room was bad enough, but the visual sent me over the edge.
Haven’t had chicken noodle soup since.
I attended so many schools; it would take a novel to just to get through kindergarten to middle school. The price you pay for being a military brat. One story sticks in head from my middle school days.
Being a very awkward teenager and just returning to my hometown of Burlington NJ from a school in Hampton VA, I found reconnecting with childhood acquaintances was becoming quite difficult. To avoid being ostracized, I hung out with the smokers, occasionally taking a puff just to show I was cool. We always hid out between a building and the statue of Wilbur Watts, also the name of the school, and did our dastardly deed. Since this was the bad ass crowd, not to many people fucked with us and we remained relatively safe from the threats and hazing by the jocks. They were afraid we might cough on them and give them some kind of disease.
I remember this day so vividly. After the bell rang for classes to start, we all grabbed our books and head into school for first period. I was finishing up the last puff so I smashed the cig on the ground and took off for the door. Some dickweed jock came running up behind me and pushed me into the door and didn’t even have the good graces to say excuse me. i was pissed and I recognized him as one of the asshole wrestlers who pinned me down in the gym and rubbed his funky ass arm pit in my face. It was time for retribution.
I sat through all my morning classes not even paying attention, just thinking of a way to get back at this douche wad. What made it worst was that I had seen him in my lunch period before with his other jock buddies. I would have my chance for revenge before the day ended.
Lunch time came around and we had “shit on a shingle” that day. For those who don’t know what shit on a shingle is, its ground beef in some horrible tasting tomato sauce served with mash potatoes and sitting on top of toast. Not a pleasant looking meal.
When lunch period started, I got my meal and hid behind a pillar so not to be seen. Sure nuff, said asshole comes strolling in with his entourage of hooligan’s grab-assing and all sorts of jock shit. After drinking my carton of juice, I opened the carton up and tried to make the folds as weak as possible then stuffing it full of the nasty crap and those watery mash potatoes. I folded it back up and waited for the right moment when they were so engaged in their own laughter and banter they would not see it coming.
They were so full on themselves and talking about their glories on the mat and conquest with the girls that they where oblivious to my presence. Then it came, he mentioned a name that just sunk into the pit of my stomach. This was all the catalyst I needed to launch my attack. I launched the carton in the air and it sailed towards its intended target with the grace of an Eagle sailing on the up currents of the wind.
Oh the name, I forgot to tell you about that. Well I had a deep crush on a girl at school named Tony Tupea. She was an Italian girl who in knew from grade school and we always walked to school in the mornings and I carried her books to school for her. Boy was I a sucker.
Oh, the carton is still in the air isn’t it? Ok, the carton came crashing down on his head splattering crap all over him and his crew. No sooner I started laughing my ass off then a teacher grabbed my shoulder and said come with me, you’re in big trouble son.
It was worth being expelled and the subsequent ass whopping I got that evening. My dad didn’t understand why I was laughing while he was whipping me. He quit in frustration and left nodding his head. I never forgave Tony for kissing him but that’s how love goes.
On the iPod now – “Koto Blues” – Hiroshima
Re: Bunker Cam
Jeff! You shaved your moustache!
Being a little fat kid, there were very few school cafeteria items I didn’t like and certainly always ate it all, but our county’s schools served the same chili throughout my entire career there and it was awesome!!! Especially at highschool when we could pile it high with all of the government cheese we could fit on it. The only thing I refused to eat was the cheeseburger suprise which was essentially a caserole made out of yesterday’s left over cheeseburgers (buns and all) with some extra cheese thrown in with some kind of glue to make it a caserole. I never understood that one, just give me cheeseburgers two days in a row, what’s the diff?
Swami Bologna – Thanks for reminding me.
I’ve said this before in the comments section – but where I went to high school, they actually let the students smoke in an area in back of the gym. I doubt that goes on today.
T Farty, I have eaten nothing but salads and vegetables, both of which I hate, since Friday and taken 2 of the omega 3 fish oil capsules three times a day. Also drank a lot of water. Ran a few miles and played hoops twice over the weekend….and mowed my sand. Am happy to have lost some weight, but the prison rape feeling back there sucks.
On IPOD right now- “Lies, Lies, Lies”- Ministry
We didn’t have a cafeteria in elementary school. In those days (I was born in 68) one parent income families were the norm. If you came by bus you could stay, but you had to eat at your desk and bring your own lunch. If you didn’t come by bus the school basically said tough shit, go somewhere else for an hour. I came from a single parent household (before it became the fashionable choice it is today) and it caused no end of grief.
In high school (no middle school in my area: K to 8 was elementary, 9 to 12 high, and we still had grade 13 for those destined for university) the cafeteria was run by some company that knew about as much about preparing food as Hitler did about human rights. Eating there was never a good option, but your choices were limited. I took a bus and if I slept in and didn’t have time to pack a lunch, it was off to the cafeteria for some Dachau burgers with French fries.
I had a similar story to your one about Shave. One day in high school we were sitting in the cafeteria before class. I had bought a huge tub-o-cola with no lid. This other kid, Matt, started throwing little balls of paper, trying to get one into my coke. I was in a foul mood, so I sat there smiling just daring him, as he kept shooting. When he finally sunk one, I threw the drink in his face and soaked him. There was a brief pause while everyone waited to see if Matt and I would fight but nothing ever came of it.
The elementary school I went to was the best food ever! The school consisted of kindergarten through 8th grade (in one building).
Some of the teachers taught two different grades in one room…ex: first and second in the same room, same teacher..etc.
In a small community like the one I grew up in, you might have a total of less than 200 students..K through 8th…
Anyway, the school had five classrooms, most of them were combined, depending on the size of the class. We had no cafeteria or gym so we were required to go into the hallway and get our lunch tray from a window that connected with the kitchen and carry it back to our desks.
Of course this gave the boys in my class AMPLE opportunity to wreak havoc.
There were twelve boys and three girls in my class. The boys were always doing disgusting things with their food. They’d put an open carton of milk high on a shelf in the classroom until it smelled so bad that Mrs.Espling would hunt it down and toss it.
They’d put those little paper cups of pudding or fruit in other people’s boots (we lived in Maine so you’d wear winter boots to school and then change into shoes).
There were contests to see who could stick the most macaroni and cheese under their desk and the hot fried bologna toss (the person who got their bologna to stick to the ceiling the longest won).
We never had a choice between chocolate milk or plain milk but this boy named Dean would fall for the old chocolate ex-lax in his milk every time.
Pure chaos….jeezum crow it was wild in that class. And you guys wonder where I get my weirdness from.
bikerchick — wow, a short, zippered jumpsuit? Glad we didn’t have that. Our uniforms were a t-shirt with the school name and/or mascot across the chest, usually too tight, thus exposing early bloomers to ridicule about their budding boobies. The short-shorts were made from stiff, scratchy canvas-like fabric that allowed you to stand them up in the corner when not in use. The tube socks had the requisite contrasting band at the top, further emphasizing the chub around my knock knees. Say hello to the beginnings of body image issues. It was not until high school that we were allowed to wear sweatpants, which were equally unattractive but hid flaws a little better. Damage had already been done though.
Pats of butter in fluted paper holders ALWAYS wound up on the ceiling, launched there on the end of a plastic spoon
Cafeteria rolls…pure heaven. I’m not sure what they were made from, but they were better than puppies and rainbows, MIXED TOGETHER! Dn’t recall much else of school lunch, as I almost always rbought mine from home, but if rolls were on the menu, I was buying.
And for some reason the Fairfax County schools always paired pizza with baked beans. That still strikes me as odd.
Ah – the gymsuit. Doubleknit polyester, BACK ZIP, abotu a 1-inch inseam on the attached shorts, and once you sweat even a DROP in it the smell would not wash out.
*Shudder*
No elementary schools around here with cafeterias, high school brought the cafeteria experience to life. When I went, the first few years the cafeteria was run in-house, and had decent food. One in particular that I fondly remember was Sloppy Joe tuesday. It wasn’t anything special by any stretch of the imagination, but the meat sauce for some reason tasted just right to me. I’d like to try one of those again. Then the evil years began… Beaver Foods took over cafeteria duties (probably the same evil cafeteria conglomerate that Tyrosine was subjected to, since they had a strangle hold on school cafeterias in this city). Shitty expensive crap only to be eaten if you where short on cash to get something from one of the joints around the school.
As for your proposed cafeteria Jeff, I predict you will be sorely disappointed when/if it does come to be. It will either be run by the likes of Beaver Foods, or a small fast food franchise type affair with prices reflecting the fact it is serving to a captive audience.
My High School (emphasis on “high”) had the usual cafeteria stuff, but also had a short order line where they sold fresh burger, dogs, fries, pizza, and the entire assortment of Hostess snack cakes. Pretty good stuff.
When I was in the Air Force, the cafeteria style food was actually really good. On the flip side, I had to visit an Army base one time, and the stuff they served was the absolute worst crap in the world.
College cafeteria food…I’ve attended half a dozen colleges, but I must say, UCLA cafeteria food has no equal.
One boy in 6th grade mixed his leftover mashed taters, peas, and mystery meat into one big mess trying to gross out everybody. A teacher thought she’d make an example of him and made him eat it, though. Buzz kill.
My elementary school was in Beaver Dam, KY. We were the Beaver Dam Beavers! I shit you not.
We had really standard industrial food the entire time I went to school in Pueblo. The only thing that stands out is the “Snack Bar” at high school. It was just off the cafeteria, and offered convenience store food like nachos, hot dogs, popcorn, etc. More often than not, my friends & I would leave campus at lunch, but we’d have to be sneaky about it, as the school had a “Security Officer” named Rocky. He was just some creepy old dude who always wore avaitor sunglasses & an ugly brown leather jacket, whether it was 34 degrees, or 104. Nobody ever messed with him, though. He looked like he’d been cut a few times, and wouldn’t take any shit. Of course, everyone had a Rocky/narrow escape story, but I never actually saw it happen. Probably all bullshit. I can guarantee, though, I saw him checking out the girls a lot. That’s the creepy part. A 40+ guy checking out high school girls. Oh – and, we had a PA in the cafeteria, that wasn’t tied in with the main school PA. So, every month, a student would be selected to be “DJ” for a month. That was a fun gig. Oddly, I don’t remember anything untoward going out over the lunchroom PA.
Brynhildr & bikerchick – That was half my fun, watching the girls in those most ridculus outfits working out. Who designed those outfits? Must have been some Nun or Reverend Mother.
Ognir, we, too, had “smoking areas” in our high school. Three of them, in fact. And open campus at lunch. You’re right, though – doubt they could do either anymore.
The only cafeteria food I remember was the poor boy sandwiches in high school and pizza day in elementary school. Usually brought my lunch. Back in those days, a pint of milk cost a dime.
Happy Tuesday, Surfers!
@AWG – I think your diet is what’s making things unpleasant. Mix in some cheese.
Un-be-friggin-lievable. How do all you Reporters remember these vivid details from school cafeterias? I am jealous. Or maybe lucky.
I vaguely remember that “pizza day” was something to look forward to. And I ate a whole lot of peanut-butter-and-jelly sammiches out of a brown bag onaccouna it was cheaper than buying the school fare.
My only vivid memory (well, semi-vivid) is that one year I was in charge of buying the doughnuts for high school breakfast. The doughnuts were manufactured at a little shop in downtown Foxboro called, I think, The Donut Shop. I got there early and they would give me a big cardboard container full of doughnuts. I would load the container into my Chevy Nova II and bring them to high school for resale. But not before sampling a honey glazed. Man, there is nothing like a freshly manufactured honey glaze Donut Shop doughnut. I still have visions…
I ate in the cafeteria up until 8th grade, but I don’t remember much about the food. I do remember that the mac & cheese was mushy and disgusting and tasted like vomit. And I remember the soggy squares of “pizza”.
In high school, we had an open lunch, so half the time, I ate at the fast food place on the corner. Can’t tell you how many times I just ate french fries for lunch.
Alex,
Oh, I remember Beaver Foods quite well: the over cooked fries that looked like little cinders, the moldy burgers, their staff that looked like recovering crack-whores…..
Their atrocities were not limited to the high schools, they also served terrible food at Fanshawe and Western, albeit briefly. They’re still in business under a different name.
To Angry White Guy: Several years ago, my ass was expanding exponentially also. I topped out at size 42 pants. Was a Diet Cokaholic, 5 or 6 cans per day, minimum. I constantly craved spaghetti, bread, pizza, mashed potatoes, rice, all starches and ate lots of it. Three years ago, I decided to stop drinking Diet Cokes as a New Year’s resolution. In short order, my desire for starches diminished, and I lost 24 pounds in 3 months with zero effort. I did get caffeine withdrawal headaches, so I increased my coffee intake (black, no sugar, no cream). Of course, all that coffee makes me poop, so more weight loss. I am now age 44 and back to my high school graduation weight of 185.
My wife thought I was dying of cancer and made me go get a check-up, which I did. The doctor believes that all artificial sweeteners increase your appetite.
In layman’s terms, when you drink diet anything, your mouth sends a signal to the brain that you are consuming sugar. So, your body produces insulin to break down the sugar. In a short time, your body is now prepared to digest the sugar, but no sugar reached your stomach because you ate a chemical substitute. Then, your stomach tells your brain that you need food, because all that insulin and other gastric fluids are waiting around to digest something. Thus, we over eat to compensate, especially starchy foods which resemble sugars.
DIET COLA MAKES YOU FAT.
Drink beer, water, or coffee instead.
That’s what the doctor said.
It worked for me. No sodas for 3+ years now.
Taiwan On – Must have been all that pot I smoked as a teen or all the Ginkgo Biloba I take now for memory and alertness.
We had the BEST pizza burgers at my elementary school. I always missed those things after I moved on to High School. A few years ago, an old friend of mine who’s mom worked in that elementary school cafeteria passed away. While going through her things he found that pizza burger recipe. I was a little freaked out to find out they had ground up Spam in them, but when we made them and they tasted just like they did 30 years ago, the Spam was forgotton. Delish!!!
hardoxdan,
I just had a fucking epiphany. I drink Diet Cokes like a man obsessed. I’ve not been able to understand why I’m still gaining weight because they have no calories.
No more Diet Cokes for me. I probably won’t be able to do the salad and veggy shit like AWG, but I’ll let you guys know if it works for me.
Thanks!
A high school cafeteria delicacy…
Have any of you experienced the deliciousness of a sandwich called the “Scoop Burger”? It was served on Fridays and made up of all the food that was left over from Monday through Thursday. All combined together In a bun sloppy joe style.
Sometimes pretty darn good, other times kind of risky.
Best cafeteria food from elementary school…Apple Crisp. Eaten in silence as patrolling nuns enforced the no talking at lunch rule.
Our grade school cook previously cooked for the crew of a commercial fishing vessel in Alaska. All her food was great, but her commodity cherry cobbler and government surplus rice pudding were out of this world.
Great food from kinder (hard to screw up cookies and milk)… to senior. Everyday home cooking in a small town 30 miles NE of Cincy. Homemade peaunet butter cookies and apple crisp. Amazing Chicken ala king to chilie. Can’t remember a bad meal. In elementary school the tables folded out of the walls in the multi-purpose room. A stage was at one end and the concrete/ tiled floor had a basketball court painted on it and we could raise and lower the hoops. Also…in elementary school…every kid had one week kitchen helper duty on a rotation basis. You got out of class early and free lunch. Not a bad deal all in all. Also…little glass milk bottles in elementary school. Caps held on with a little cardboard disc and a bonnet type cap that if you took off right, you could stomp on it and make one hell of a POP!!! Jerry Kinner brought a fried egg sandwich with ketchup everyday. Everyday!!!
Didn’t eat that much in high school. No parking lot stuff. I was just working to deveolpe my loner persona.
.
My junior high made killer rotini and meat sauce. This stuff was to die for. As an adult I have tried many times to duplicate it and never come close. I dream about that stuff. It came with a piece of garlic bread, too.
The worst: probably the alleged pizza. It was a combo of bad tomato sauce on bisquick with plastic cheese.
I have never eaten a school lunch (during my own time in school). I took my lunch every day from 1st grade to 9th grade. In high school, we had open campus, so we’d walk to the drug store and buy crackers, or whatever. But, seriously, I never ate in the cafeteria. My mom made me a peanut butter sandwich every day. It could be one of three things: plain peanut butter, peanut butter with apple slices on it or peanut butter with fritos on it. I have never liked jelly. My mom said after all those years, just the smell of peanut butter made her queasy.
I don’t know why I never even tried a school lunch. I think the smell of the place made me think it was just a sketchy proposition to eat there.
Anyway, I have eaten at my son’s school for certain things, like Family Hot Dog Day and once or twice for the Thanksgiving lunch (even though Tgiving foods make me want to wretch).
We had gym uniforms in Junior High. They were a one piece navy blue number with white piping and white stretchy collars. There were no buttons or zippers, so we had to pull it on from the neckline – and it had an elastic waist. It had to have our first initial and last name printed in white marker across the front. Shoes and socks got the same treatment. I could go on and on about this situation – because it was just SO over the top crazy even I have trouble believing I lived it!
Gym class…”The Early Years” .
They assigned us a little locker maybe 1 X 1 in the school gym locker room. Gym class involved nackedness right away. Get naked and put on your gym clothes. Shorts and shirts with a number on it like we were going to get lost in the next 45 minutes. After gym class, it was…open locker, take out your towel and strip down. Throw your tee-shirt, shorts and jock into your locker and head butt nacked to the showers. Never gave it a second thought.
Do they still do that…?
Cafeteria food!! Where do I start?? My high school..imagine my shock when as a new student everyone assured me hamburger day was the “best” day to eat hot lunch..to find out they were spamburgers?? I never ate anything there ever again.
I have pushed aroung the diet cola/fat theory myself. I didn’t seem heavier, but now I drink all this diet crap and I am still chubby..hmmm.
I was one of the poor poor younguns who had free lunch, and had to carry around a grubby card that was a different color so of course everyone knew. But..I was so hungry because we were that bad off..ugh.
Also..in 4th grade we were lucky enough to live in the same town as a Yoplait plant, and were lucky enough to get their bulk castoffs for free..woohoo!! First time I ever had yogurt was there. My father thought pickle loaf was a fine lunch meat and I should be lucky enough to get that..can’t look at that crap in the stores. gag.
Now I am hungry
bummer
I don’t remember much about school, not much at all, least of all what I ate in the cafeteria. There are 2 things that have stuck with me though, the chili and the pizza. The chili had a weird tomato juice that wasn’t juice at all but more of thick blood red sauce. We were robbed of any more than about 3 beans and a few tiny pieces of ground beef(?). The protein came in the form of a half of a government issued peanut butter sandwich. The bread was only edible if dipped in the chili to soften it up. I recall thinking it was pretty nasty back in the day but today I would love to have that meal again. Not so much because it tasted good but just for nostalgia. I’ve tried to duplicate it but that sauce would be impossible to reproduce, my bread is not stale enough, and my peanut butter isn’t government issued.
The pizza was either the greasy, cheese covered totino’s that was always cut perfectly to fit into the large rectangular tray divider. I always prayed I got the rectangle with the least amount of that funky sausage that always had a raw texture to it because of all the cheese and grease. Once in a while we got ripped off and were subjected to homemade cafeteria lady pizza. It was just this thick nasty dry crust slathered with tomato paste and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. God that shit was foul and was quickly passed off to whoever was desperate enough to eat it. Usually this scrawny girl who could eat as much as full grown man. Looking back now I think she had worms because she could pack the food away.
My post vivid cafeteria memory was of this fucking cunt named Mrs. Ellet. She wasn’t a real teacher, she was just a helper in the Speds class. She was as wide as she was tall but she was always nice to the kids and really playful with us…or so I thought. Well one day the bitch butted in front of me in the lunch line. I playfully said “HEY” and she grabbed my mouth and squeezed my cheeks together so my lips made the fish face and then she patted my cheek. I didn’t give a shit or anything, she was just being playful Mrs. Ellet. Well the next day she did the same thing and I once again said “HEY” but this time I also patted her on the cheek just like she had done to me the day before. I didn’t squeeze her cheeks because, well, that would have been inappropriate and I was basically a well behaved 3rd grader. The next thing I know I’m told to go see the principal who was in the cafeteria for the 5th-6th grade lunch period. I walked in all wide-eyed and nervous wondering what the hell I could have done. I found the principal and he told me to go wait for him in his office. I stammered out “What did I do?” in a mousy little voice. At the top of his lungs, in front o the entire cafeteria he screams “I TOLD YOU TO GO WAIT IN MY OFFICE.” The cafeteria went dead silent and I was so totally floored and high-tailed it out of there. I hit the hallway just in time for the crocodile tears to start rolling down my cheeks. No one had ever screamed at me like that, not even my dad on my naughtiest days. I sat in the outer office shaking like I was going to my execution. After sitting there for an eternity, Mr Guinin finally walked in with Mrs. Ellet and called me back to his office. I still had no idea what I’d done. Not even seeing Mrs. Ellet clued me in that it was for tapping Mrs. Ellet’s cheek. It was such a silly harmless thing that it never entered my mind that I had brought down such wrath. It turned out Mrs. Ellet had told Mr. Guinin that I (a fucking third grader) had slapped her. In vain I tried to explain that I had only tapped her cheek 3 times just like she had done to me the day before. From his over-reaction you would have thought I gave the bitch a right hook. I was told in no uncertain terms that students were never ever to touch a teacher. He followed the scolding up with a whipping. Whippings were still allowed in the early 80’s. The douche called my dad and when I got home my dad was furious about me getting in trouble. That is until I sobbingly told him exactly what happened. I even demonstrated exactly what she did to me and then what I did to her. I also told him about the principal screaming at me in front of everyone and about the whipping, which had developed into a nice purple bruise by the time I took a bath that night. My dad took me to school the next day, and I didn’t know it at the time but he met with the principal. I was later called into the office where the principal apologized and said he misunderstood the situation and he should not have screamed at me and he should not have whipped me. I don’t know what my dad said to the fucker to make him apologize to a 3rd grader but knowing my dad I can imagine he must have threatened him to within an inch of his life. So thanks dad, you rock!! And fuck you Mr. Guinin and fuck you too Mrs. Ellet you fat fucking cunt.
Wow that turned into one hell of a rant!
RNK – That was some experience. BTW, I use to live and went to high school and college in Indy and I attended IU from 76-77, IUPUI 77-79 and Ivy Tech from 91-93.
Tyrosene,
The hideousl Beaver Foods is now known as, the equally, if not more-so hideous Chartwells.
Their employees are so brainwashed they actually think their concoctions are good. They’ll talk up the food, while the wilted and miserable looking letture cries up at you, yelling one last warning to run away…
One time while at a site I didn’t feel like making a Timmies run, they had changed over the coffee to those pathetic thermos dispensers (who the flying fuck thinks this is considered as “fresh” coffee anyway?) and three varieties of coffee. I ask which is the normal coffee of the lot (goofy names and flavoring has no buisness being in coffee), and get assured that it is great coffee, good and strong. I asked if it’ll hold my spoon straight since i like to chew my coffee. You bet I’m told. Yeah right. I asked for my money back. I shoulda known better.
Another time a fella I was working with had to get lunch, same location, I join him only to see whats available these days (been about a year since the coffee incident) I cast a dubious eye over the offerings and warn him, but he figures he’ll try old reliable burger. What would you like on your burger ? ‘tomato and onions’. Cafeteria lady then goes through great lengths to pick A slice, yes, a single slice of the thinnest tomato slice I have ever seen and places it on the burger. So, picture your standard issue burger, and a tomato slice that may rival the diameter of a golf ball delicately placed in the center… Then the onions… Three entire twigs of onion equally delicately plucked out from its bretheren onion slice. WTF? Not the entire slice, but three miserable rings? Tomato and onion must be budget killers… We both get coffee…. I should have known better… He should have known better…
Then there is the sanitation…. Coughing. Sure, they turn there head away from the food and prep area but cough… right into their hand which is about to go digging through the food.
And since the latest idiotic craze, the bottled water ban(d-wagon), they cart out pitchers of water to meetings and events and what do they do? They have their g-d damn thumb sticking in the pitcher to pick it up. Nice one typhoid Mary…
There is one location where I’ll have soup on occasion since its usually halfway decent when you didn’t fill the brown bag sufficiently, while tomatos and onions may be budget breakers, salt must be free. Holy hell I’ve had some salty puckering soups out of that place. I should have known better…
And I know I’ll succumb again when my guard is let down… I should know better.
Forgot about Funshawe… D-block caf had decent fries–funny how with the three or four cafeterias there, though run by the same company all had individual quirks.. Ate more fries (from D-caf) than I care to admit during my time there, but it was the safest option. Also had too many of those hot dogs they tossed into the microwave that you could get at the ‘pub’. Fortunately half way through my sentence at that place my food habits changed for the better and brown bagging was becoming my prefered source of food.
“Man, I wish I’d kept my too-many-potatoes badge… I’d like to wear it to the mall..” I think you need to call the T-shirt Lady and get us some hats or shirts in your gifted scribbles with this quality information.
They had Cinnamon rolls at my Junior High. Kids would get to pick a one. I was a po white boy so, I got to serve food in order to eat for free. I kind of liked washing the dishes rather than sitting with a bunch of persons with anuses as big as the rolls. Jeff started it with the logrolls.
Next you’ll get me all nostalgiac about getting some 3-4 medals for being a kickass paperboy. I was definitely a child laborer….
The Reds sodomized the Pirates, but hey we still suck.
Cheers, and Go Reds!
Greg in Cincinnati
i went to Catholic School in suburban Fort Wayne Indiana and we didn’t have a cafeteria, so our food was shipped in like tv dinners. There were these big industrial ovens that the nuns recruited favored students (or hated ones depending on how you look at it) to work and warm up these shipped in lunches. We had a hot side and a cold side. Milk etc… One time we had a theme week and on the hot side were these donuts, but they weren’t sweet. They tasted like pretzels without the salt. I was in 6th grade and never had a bagel until then. Not that funny just the truth.
The soy burgers they served resemble todays 2 for 2 dollar soy burgers you can get at the Speedway. I occasionally indulge. 1 pack mustard, 1 pack ketchup, you have a fine meal. yum
BTW I like gross foods like that. Various livers, sweet meats, and the kind. One of the Wife and I’s favorites is to go to Jack in the Box and order a buffalo’s assload of their tacos. We call them “shitty tacos” but we love them. Last time we were there, when i ordered, I almost called the tacos Shitty Tacos to the drive thru girl.
“Uh yes hi, i’d like 3 orders of shitty tacos and a piss poor coke please.” I didn’t say it though.
Hey Tony, I too am from suburban Ft. Wayne. Well technically Huntington, but any time spent outside of my little oasis is in Ft. Wayne. So that makes at least 4 from Indiana, 3 from the Ft. Wayne area. Oh and Frank Burns was also from Ft. Wayne.
I loved the cafeteria food. I ate it after I ditched the aluminum lunchbox from about 3rd grade to 6th grade. I was too cool to eat in the cafeteria in Junior High (7th through 9th grade here in WV, or used to be, has since changed). Though, eating from a bag in the gym during 7th grade did hook me up with a very pleasant 9th grader. In high school, the food was pretty good. Always had the pizza and/or hot dog option if the daily fare wasn’t wanted. It seemed to work well.
During my senior year lunch cost .85, unless you got an extra milk, then it was $1.15. So, on the first day I started collecting everyone’s extra change for a graduation party. The “extra milk” people always said they brought the exact amount and didn’t have extra change. So, I chastised and harassed them until they gave up that extra milk. It was a small school and I only collected during my lunch period (there were two). I tried to recruit during the second lunch period, but there wasn’t the dedication. There was even a bank account opened with three or four names able to withdraw in the (highly likely) possibility I died prior to graduation. We ended up with 7 or so kegs and food. All for free of charge. Had to collect to refill around midnight, but still a success in my eyes.
One other memory (out of many) also occurred during my senior year. My mom had bought me a shirt that said “Chicks dig Big Peckers” on a trip to Jersey or Maryland somewhere. “Big Peckers” was a restaurant I have never been to. Loved the shirt though. Chief Nazi in the lunchroom gave me shit. Me, in my all knowing punk ass manner told him that it was no different from a Hooters shirt and told him to explain the difference to me. He instructed me that he didn’t have to explain anything to me and to take the shirt off immediately, so I did, right there. And then went back to my table and began finishing my lunch. Not a big deal, but he was so pissed I thought he would stroke out. Wanted to expel me but the principal kind of liked me for some reason (long story) and agreed with me. Spent 3 days in detention.
Sorry so long. Glory days…until I got to WVU the next year.
RNK – no shit? Small world. I grew up on the east side in New Haven. My Catholic School was St. John’s till 8th, then went to New Haven High School, home of the Bulldogs.
The cafeteria at the High School was actually pretty good. On boring weekends we’d drive out to Huntington to cruise a different strip than we usually did. You ever cruise Shoaff Park in Fort Wayne?
Tony – My only run in with New Haven was riding there in a car full of white trash thugs so my friend’s boyfriend could buy pot. Ah the good ol’ days. I didn’t do much cruising beyond the age of 16. I was too busy honing my recreational drug use skills with a much older crowd. Damn I had fun back then!
I loved the no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookie lumps our school served and even craved them years later during my pregnancy. Also we could buy jello pudding pops during the last five minutes of lunch. I don’t think they make those anymore.
During the mid 70’s, I was in elementary school. My dad kept forgetting to send in my lunch money so I finally got it out of his wallet myself. Turns out he had just cashed a paycheck the day before and I tried to pay the lunch lady with several $100.00 bills.
We used to take the kernels of corn and stick them on our teeth like Billy Bob teeth. Ahhhh….memories.
Hey Jason;
I told this DIET COKE MAKES YOU FAT secret to a guy that works for us as inside sales in out Pittsburgh office.
He is 59 years old and had a big gut. He was something like 6 foot and 230.
He admitted that he drank a 2 liter Diet Pepsi every evening.
He cut out the diet soda and lost exactly 24 pounds in 3 months. No additional effort.
Just spoke to him yesterday. He is now another believer.
Drink black coffee, 3 or 4 cups every AM. Makes you go Number 2. Beer is OK. Water is better. I make sure to drink minimum one quart between lunch and 5;00 PM.
Then, beers or vodka and Cranberry.
Works for me. Just got on the scale. 186 today.
Regards
Dan
I remember my cafeteria… it was under a big gigantic tree which could be seen miles away. I was really fun because the tortilla lady would go and build up some sort of a tent right over the mud. We would all sit around the mud as the high energy super meals tortilla keep us going on… eventually they would bring a piniata with real candy inside, not little mud stones with some kind of sugar on top which were given to us as candy…so those piniatas…they where insane… imagine the sugar rush from the real candy after, we would have amazing mud parties with tortilla and if we where lucky we could get bottled water…those days..
I think the worst thing from the cafeteria in my day was called beef nuggets. It was some sort of grayish “meat” covered in flour, and baked. No amount of catchup could make it edible.
Two favorite highschool lunch stories:
I was sitting at the table with a few friends as one of the “cool” kids threw an apple at me. Being the fat kid, I guess they expected me to eat it. I picked the apple up, and without missing a beat, whipped it right back at those jerks. The apple bounced off the table and hit one of them in the face. I had no idea that apples could bounce.
Another time, I had in-school suspension. I was minding my own and doing my schoolwork until the lunchroom detention kids came in to eat. One of the kids who everyone hates sat by me and decided it would be funny to make me eat a chip. I told him twice to leave me alone, and then I stabbed him with my pencil. The funny part is that when he complained to the teacher, she said, “She told you to stop.” and did nothing about it.
When I went to junior high, the school didn’t have a full kitchen, so the only food they served was called “satellite lunches” – stuff that was prepared at (or possibly left over) the high school a day or two before and then packaged in little cartons. They were uniformly disgusting, I always brought lunch from home.
The cool thing about satellite lunches, though, was that they came with a spork. We would get hold of a couple sporks, then have a competition wherein we’d take turns snapping the handle against the “sporky” end of our opponent’s. First one to bust the spork off all the way to the handle was the winner. Naturally, there were a few high-speed plastic shrapnel injuries from time to time.
Hardoxdan-
I had heard the diet soda thing some time ago, so I rarely drink ANY soda at all now. Diet Mtn. Dew is probably the only soda I have drank in the past few years, but no more than one litre per month. Usually, that litre is drank within a three day period of that month, just to finish it off. Been staying with the water and coffee only now. Congrats on your program.
Jeff in Denver, the doctor told me to cut out cheese completely for now. The high cholesteral reading I had was off the charts and he gave me these rabbit food guidelines. Cheese is awesome, and I miss it very much.
On IPOD right now- “Sanity Assassin”- Bauhaus
During one memorable lunch period in high school, I saw a fight between a guy and a girl. Both of ‘em were at least 6 feet tall and went to the area vocational tech school for half the year — the kids that the regular high-schoolers didn’t fuck around with because they were known to be assbeaters, even the girls. The amazon girl grabbed the dude and slammed him on the floor and broke his fuckin’ arm – no small feat because this guy was at least 200 pounds. Even the teachers that monitored that lunch period were trying to stifle their laughter as they hauled both of them off to the principal’s office.
Favorite cafeteria food: chicken in gravy over biscuits. The rest of the stuff served ranged from not memorable to just plain inedible.
Hiya,
My high school cafeteria once grossly overestimated the amount of food they’d need for the day. It was the day before Christmas break or somesuch so a lot of people just blew it off. I saw one of my chums go into the cafe with a duffel bag and come out a few minutes later, said bag obviously much heavier. He motioned me over and I looked in the bag… which was stuffed to the gills with cheeseburgers. He must have had 70 burgers in that bag. I can’t imagine he ate all of them, as they were the standard “65% mystery meat / 35% filler” you’d expect from a high school cafeteria – but I laughed my ass off.
I don’t remember much about school lunches, and I only ate the offered lunch from 1st thru 5th grade when there was no other option (other than bringing your own lunch from home, which for me was always a sandwich and carrot or celery sticks and/or a piece of fruit w/ a note from mom that said ‘I love you!’ I always thought if she loved me she would have included Doritos or Oreos.). I do remember my first grilled cheese at school because it was made with Swiss cheese, which was a travesty to my 6 year old palate. The only other thing that stands out in my memory is the chipped beef and gravy. That was the only offering I absolutely could not eat.
-Bikerchick & Bryn – I also wore the gym suits of which you speak ( a little different from what Tiff and ETW describe). The one piece zip up the front, solid on the bottom, striped on top in junior high (but ours were red), and the stiff shorts and T-shirt in high school (hated the shorts, but the T-shirts were good and I wish I still had mine).
-Tony S – How funny that you can remember your grade school lunches with such clarity and yet you can’t remember to lock the back door at night, sometimes you don’t even remember to close it.
- Tilly – Thought of Jenny this morning because Whitney Houston is on Good Morning America. Jenny loved WH and Duran Duran. Funny that the wild girl who shaved her head also loved WH and DD. Also, Jenny was a bitch. Totally unrelated but had to be said.
Ognir — they let us smoke outside the cafeteria too. I think they stopped that “program” by my senior year which just made everyone go into stealth smoking mode
haroxdan — no soda here either, diet or regular. It works.
I forgot another cafeteria story: race relations were never that great at our school. One day, after a week long buildup, the entire cafeteria emptied out through the side door into the courtyard and there was a damned near race riot. I’m sure the teachers and lone security guard were shitting their pants over that one.
Lunch Room Pizzas (aka LRPs) were the greatest. I am trying to find some of that soggy, rectangular goodness to this day and have turned up empty. Apparently, where my wife works, they’ve switched over to those mini circular Tony’s pizzas you can get at the gas station. Bummer.
Most memorable cafeteria moment from all three schools… High School.
They were renovating our high school my junior and senior year. The joke was, if this cost $8 million, why didn’t they just spend $9 million and do it right.
Case in point… Set up the new sprinkler system, turn the fire alarm on and then try to bleed the air out of the pipes during school hours. They set the fire alarm off every time they did that. We had been outside so much that when it went off during lunch NOBODY moved. The guidance counselor just completely lost her shit! I have never seen somebody so mad, spouting more obscenities. The jist of it was that if it had been a real fire, we had been so desensitized that we would have burned up.
Never heard the fire alarm after that!
@ognir – More RichRod stories! Hopefully the bastard’s getting what he deserves now. He’s my age and I can remember him making all-state at North Marion.
@Tiff – Bake beans with pizza is a family tradition in our house. Always thought it was just my family.
I can remember in my elementary school cafeteria that we weren’t allowed to talk. Can that be true? My memory may be foggy. Asking school kids not to talk? But the grossest thing to happen was one day in my mashed potatoes I found a big thick red hair in it. I go up to the cook with the big red hair and she denies it’s hers. The fat pig.
We also used to cram all our food we couldn’t eat into our empty milk cartons and they’d be a round ball after filling them up. I was the champ of putting the most canned peaches in my mouth. Only spit ‘em all out once!
Has this already been mentioned? The Wal-Mart game takes off. Jeff, you could have benn famour again.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090901/us_time/08599191940100
I have tried to log into that site at least ten times and get the “unavailable” and “you may be experiencing difficulties because……..” page every time. Can you submit photos to it? There’s a Walmart in the hood here that I have seen the strangest shit happen at. Bizarre trannies, 500 pounders, even the hard to spot tracheotomy dude smoking out front. I could spend my lunch break in there taking pictures- instead of eating, y’know.
On IPOD right now- “Kinda I Want To”- Nine Inch Nails
AWG — heard this morning that there are so many people trying to access the People of Walmart website that the server has crashed. I can’t get it either right now.
Yeah, I was unable to get to the site either. Thought it might be just me. What’s up with that? Just saw the article and wanted to share.
Never ate a school lunch once, would rather starve whenever I forgot my packed lunch. We had the awful “gymsuits”-ugh, blue bottoms with the stripes up top. I was a normal size, but I felt SO bad for the chubby girls. Horrible.
AWG and Drug Delivery Guy
I’m a fan on FB of the People of Walmart site. Evidently, the site has taken off and has crashed several times. They’re working on it. It is fucking hilarious. The closest Walmart to me is across the bay in Oakland and I’m seriously thinking about making the trek over there with my camera just so i can submit a what they call a “Wal-Creature”.
Funny shit.
My b!tch of a first grade teacher forced me to eat canned chicken and dumplings (yuck!) in the school cafeteria. I obeyed, and promply threw it up. Served her right.
One day a worm crawled out of a mound of rice on my classmate’s plate.
There was another incident involving a cockroach, but I don’t remember the details. Repression can be a good thing.
I meant “promptly” threw it up. That woman was such a shrew; I’m sorry I missed her when I brought it all back up.
I guess I was lucky, I don’t remember ever being served something that was completely inedible. In elementary school we had the nasty hamburgers, too, though – we called them barfburgers, but we ate them anyway because they were served every Friday. The rectangle, greyish pizza was served every Monday. My favorite was when they would serve breakfast for lunch – french toast sticks, sausage, and a hashbrown patty. That was the shit. In middle and high school we actually had good food. They offered several different choices every day, pizza and hamburgers and cheese fries nachos, so there was always something you’d eat.
The worst food cafeteria-style food I ever had was at summer camp. Damn, that was bad. That was the time I learned that there is such a thing as a brownie no one will eat.
Oh I lied. In elementary school they served wet burritos a couple times a month, which were basically those cheap frozen burritos you get in the grocery store with the questionable meat, smothered in taco sauce and a few sprinkles of cheese. Nothing outwardly horrifying about this meal, except once when I was in third grade, I got food poisoning from this meal and threw up all night long. Needless to say, I never ate it again.
I mostly brought my lunch, but did eat a lot of cardboard pizza squares in elementary school. High school cafeteria food was actually pretty good, but we mainly just ate fries. Senior year, I was rarely around for lunch because I had computer lab right after, which was more or less a given that you would skip. My entire Senior year lunches were spent sitting in a car down at the reservoir, doing bong hits. Made 6th period Honors History very interesting.
mountie9wv – Big Peckers is in Ocean City, Maryland…great burgers, and still there! Get yourself a new t-shirt for old times sake!
http://www.big-peckers.com/
Sorry I’m late …AND I’m new to the surf report (LOVE IT!!) but I just wanted to add a school cafeteria story, from junior high. We had an old teacher named Mr. Menlove who kinda looked like a monkey. He was the cafeteria monitor quite often. On days when they served us whole bananas, as the fruit, he loved it! Mr. Menlove would go around collecting all the bananas that the kids didn’t want. He’d put them in his suit coat pockets until they were bulging. It got to where kids would throw their bananas at him. He’d just pick them up off the floor and put them with all the other ones he had collected during lunch. One day I asked him “Why?” I had to know the reason. Was he really a monkey or what? He told me that he takes the bananas home and his wife makes banana nut bread out of them. It thrilled him that he could get bananas for free, as often as he wanted!
My school would actually let certain students work as cafeteria staff and help dish up the lunch trays. I got to do that for a while, mostly to get out of class, but it was fun! I had a crush on a girl then and when she’d come through the lunch line I would always give her the biggest piece of cake or a double serving of dessert, to get her to notice me. But we all know how those “one-sided” romances turn out.
In elementary school, kids would bring powdered chocolate drink mix from home and stir it into their milk at school lunch. It got to be quite a popular program!