Lonely Lunch Bag

There it is sitting on the top shelf of the linen cupboard with the blue carabiner for my school keys. I'm not taking it out tonight and I don't know when or if I'll take it out again. It's been a good lunch bag, custom made for Richard with with an ice cream cone and bananas embroidered on it. Richard decided that it just didn't give the right impression when he was working with system administrators and by the time he was back working with teachers I'd adopted the lunch bag as my own. It took one colleague two years to notice that it had Richard's name on it.

Sometimes it carried sandwiches with homemade bread. Sometimes it lunch was leftover Chinese food or soup or stew. Often lunch was a salad either vegetable or fruit. I went through phases. When I was at Scarlett we bought the first bread maker and I ate mostly sandwiches. While I taught at Pearson I ate spinach salads regularly. Crackers cheese and veggies were other standbys. The one consistent thing was that I very rarely bought lunch in the school cafeteria.

It was partly that I didn't want to spend the money on lunches but more that I didn't want to get into the habit. I knew that if I went to the cafeteria and decided I liked it, it would be harder and harder to make that lunch. At the beginning of the week I was very disciplined and made my lunch the night before and put it in the fridge all ready to go. As the week wore on I seemed to leave the lunch-making later and later until on Friday I would often get up and throw in an can of tuna salad or a bagel and peanut butter. If I could convince someone to go out for Vietnamese subs that was even better.

When you eat lunch at school you have to develop certain strategies. We had a microwave in the office. It was best for me to bring foods that needed to be microwaved on days when I had a preparation period right before lunch. That way I could get lunch in and out of the microwave before classes finished. It was easier for me and others as well. If I waited then I would have to take my turn on the runway and some days it seemed as if all ten people in the department needed to microwave something. Sometimes I ate my pasta cold rather than wait for the microwave. On days when I had to supervise over lunch I tried to bring sandwiches or something that was quick to eat. I should probably say 'quicker' to eat since most of us ended up eating lunch in about fifteen minutes anyway.

I only forgot my lunch a few times in the twenty-nine years I taught. The first time was in my first or second year teaching. I was still living at home with my parents and my mother, having been a teacher herself, took pity on me and made my lunch so I wouldn't have to stay up even later to make it myself. Having parents for teachers can suck when you're a kid but they really understand the job in a way that no one else can. Anyway, I realized as soon as I got to school that I didn't have my lunch. I shrugged it off and figured I'd go and get a sandwich.

About half way through the morning I got a call from the office to say that my lunch was waiting for me at the office. My mother had put the lunch in the car and driven out to the school with it. I think, in truth, it was an excuse to show a visiting aunt where I worked. That would have been okay except that one of my kids was in the office for something shortly afterwards and the secretary asked her to take the lunch to me. She entered the room and, holding the lunch bag high, announced to the class, "Ms. H your mother just delivered your lunch." I was thoroughly embarrassed and while it was a very kind gesture, Mum and I had a conversation that night. The gist of it was that I was a responsible adult and if I forgot my lunch I could solve the problem . I failed to point out that I was responsible enough to make my lunch in the first place and she was too gracious to point that out.

Another challenge was learning to eat on someone else's schedule. There simply wasn't time for snacks and I often felt I could eat the leg off a table when lunch time arrived. By the time school was over in the afternoon I was hungry again. I did get smart enough to take a snack of fruit and yogurt with me but I was often to busy or distracted to eat it. Some days it was a chore just to get from the classroom to the car because I was tired and hungry.

One of the true joys of watching all the teachers go back to school tomorrow morning will be the knowledge that I will not have to pack a lunch every day, that I can eat when I'm hungry and the lunch can be as simple as opening the fridge and taking out an apple and a piece of cheese because I can always eat again when I get hungry. I may use the lunch bag when I go hiking but it will not have to be on deck day after day any more and neither will I.