Lunch in Middle School

Let the pleasing rhythm of Emma Thompson's voice carry the following memory into your mind.

Middle School is a battlefield.  A war zone that rages on for what feels like eternity.  It drags on and dwindles and drips like an IV into the veins of a dying man.  Middle School is slow and painful torture.  The embarrassments and awkward moments it supplies are merely the pathetic prologue to the Thermopolean War known as High School.

Middle School is a collection of terrible, horrid moments, plucked out of one's life, when he or she is struggling desperately to impress friends and teachers, and always failing miserably.  There is no such thing as moderation or subtlety in the mind of a child, no matter his desire to masquerade as an adult. 

There is a time, however, to break from the agonizing struggle of pretend.  The time that allows the child in everyone to be free.  The time when all attempts to impress will fail, and everyone acknowledges the fact, so the effort is not wasted, and instead is spent wisely on making a fool of oneself.  That lack of moderation and subtlety is best exhibited in an affectionate absence of adult affectations, known as Lunch.

Switch to Colin Firth here.

My sixth grade table was the farthest table on the north side of the cafeteria.  I fondly remember sitting next to a young up-and-coming funny-man named Justin, a new addition to our clan.  We sat across from my rediscovered best friend, Amy, and her strange awkward-minded friend Jasmine* (see footnote).  Farther down the table next to the plexi-glass window sat previously-mentioned Brooke and Kayla, with Patty, Brittany, Brittnee, Lauren, and a plethora of other BFFs.

It was this year that my system of allowance was changed.  Instead of being given lunch money every day, and a small allowance every Saturday, I would get twenty (or thirty or forty, I don't particularly remember) dollars each month, which was also meant to cover my lunch at school.  So, if I wanted to spend money on pizza and soda for lunch every day, I could not expect to buy packs of Pokemon cards with any leftover money.  On the other hand, if I was willing to eat a scrappy lunch, I had funds available to me to buy toys and Pokemon cards when the mood struck me.

I chose the second route.  I decided that I would buy two bags of potato chips for lunch every day, totaling in one dollar.  One dollar every day for lunch, meant a total of merely five dollars a week, which left me with ample funds with which to satiate my own interests.  Anyway, the important part is that I ate potato chips for lunch nearly every day.

What happened next caused some friends to laugh, some to cringe, and others left simply in awe.  When I had finished with the tangible crisps from the bag, I would turn the bag inside-out with my hand inside the bag like a vicious puppet-master, and I would lick the succulent flavor dust from the silver insides.  I would lap up the wonderful entrails of my cheap kill, valiantly claiming that I was "getting my money's worth!"  In this prosperous moment, all concerns for my public image were denied, and I was left only with the salty satisfaction of a good day's hunt.

Other memories come flooding to the fore.  Justin would periodically have rounds of popcorn-chicken basketball with Amy's shirt.  The "Ah!" that proceeded after a successful point was followed by Amy's hunt for the morsel and her victorious munch, reminding Justin of his foolish squandering of sustenance.

Eighth grade brought with it new faces, and entirely new lunch-time adventures.  Our cafeteria had been graced in multiple ways.  The first, the addition of N*Sync fruit snacks in the lunch line.  At twenty-five cents each, and the gamble of a bag full of juicy hearts or a bag full of dry gelatinous ovals, it was difficult to deny their allure.  The second blessing was a jukebox at the end of the cafeteria, which my friends and I monopolized.  Most songs featured on the jukebox were pop hits of the day, such as "Kiss of a Rose" by Seal, "Oops...I Did It Again" by Brittany Spears, and a smorgasbord of new rap and R&B hits.  However, its shining selection and favorite of our group was the old Motown hit, "My Girl" by Smokey Robinson.  In a hotly contested battle to maintain the position of "Most Played," our clan would routinely announce "Five-Dollar Fridays."  On this wonderful day, we would put five dollars worth of quarters in the jukebox and request "My Girl" with every scrumptious donation.  Reports were obtained that our anthem played repeatedly throughout the next two lunch shifts and beyond.

Lunch after middle school quickly becomes a proving ground, serving to expose every insecurity in a test to prove one's popularity.  But, for a short three years of my life, lunch was a purely social function, where judgments were held, and memories were stored as ammunition to be used at a later date.  After all, one must bring all of one's guns to the final showdown of High School.

*Jasmine had reported to our group a short year earlier that she had been visited by an Andalite from the Animorphs series, and that she was gifted with the power to shapeshift.  Some friends and I thought she was playing pretend, so we joined along and agreed that the rest of us had also been visited.  When we learned that she was serious, we were left with a semester-long awkward silence.  Rumors abounded later in life that she had a "dragon penis."  Let us leave that one alone for now.