Boxed Lunch

Our school has recently started providing a government lunch program. Every once in a while, the kids are served boxed lunches. These lunches usually consist of a sandwich (always partially frozen), a piece of fruit (bruised), either apple juice or artificially flavored applesauce, and a plastic-wrapped dessert. Whenever the bad news arrives that they are having boxed lunches, there is a communal cry of grief and chagrin that arises from the disappointed masses. Whenever this happens, it is hard for me to keep from smiling. It is not that I like to see my students miserable, it is just that it takes so little to make them miserable.

Yesterday, the eighth graders helped greet guests at a fundraising luncheon for the school. (As a side note: they are wonderful ambassadors. They are friendly, polite, and very smart. People are always impressed by their poise and maturity. I am proud to stand next to them and take the credit of being their teacher.) When we arrived, they saw boxed lunches at each place in the banquet hall. Filled with distress and concern, they came to me and asked, "Mrs. Freeman, the guests are not getting boxed lunches are they?"

"Yes, they are getting boxed lunches."

"They are not the same boxed lunches we get are they?"

After assuring them that these were different boxed lunches from a restaurant or catering service, one student piped up with a great idea for fundraising:

"They should serve the same boxed lunches we get; they'd give money so fast."

Very Insightful.