Do I have “sucker” stamped on my forehead? Am I a pushover? Do I look like I was born yesterday? Apparently the kids at our elementary school think so.
The morning I was slated to make my debut as a hot-lunch lady, Noah asked if I would sneak him an extra dessert at lunch time.
“No way pal. I’ll be sent to the school volunteer hall of shame,” I replied. To his credit he didn’t lobby later for an extra dessert, but he did laugh at me when I whispered that I was having a devil of a time and couldn’t believe I’d been royally scammed out of some ice cream sandwiches by a bunch of little kids.
Hot-lunch duty isn’t for the faint of heart. Now I understand why all of the lunch ladies of my youth were so crabby and beady-eyed. It’s hard work, especially when the kids try to scam you for an extra dessert.
“Make sure they actually have a hot-lunch,” a veteran hot-lunch Mom warned. How hard could that be, I wondered? I found out, twenty minutes into my first shift as a lunch-lady. By then I’d perfected the lunch-lady ‘look’: the ‘should I believe you?’ gaze where I search the soul of another, discerning the purity of his heart.
“I know you. I know your Mother! Hand it over, pal,” I heard myself say, to a kid who already had ice-cream smeared on his fibbin' face. Here’s the pathetic part: I actually have advanced training in school counseling. I supposedly know how to relate to school children. Nowhere in my books does it explain how to wrestle an ice-cream sandwich away from a 90- pound fourth grader, however. That should be required reading, if you ask me. (The ice-cream sandwich only suffered a minor dent, by the way. The poor kid gave up when he realized how serious I was.)
By the time I got to the next table I was on to them. The kids all waved their eager little hands in the air, the ‘I’m ready for dessert’ signal, but this time, not only did I look down to make sure they actually had a hot lunch, I also scanned for empty ice-cream sandwich wrappers. “Not so fast, buddy, you already had yours,” I smugly smiled.
Figuring I had the ice-cream-sandwich-scam licked, I confidently gave in to a doe-eyed little girl who approached me with her friend and asked ever-so-sweetly for dessert.
“You haven’t had one yet?” I asked, bending down to get a better look at her. I shoulda stopped in my tracks as we all walked back to the freezer, when out of the corner of my new beady eye I spotted her grinning triumphantly at her friend behind my back. Had I been scammed again? I scanned her face for clues as I s-l-o-w-l-y handed over the cold dessert, but got nothing. She just smiled and thanked me.
Ready for a break, I leaned back against the wall next to another hot-lunch newbie. We laughed about how deceptively difficult hot-lunch duty actually is.
“Looks like she got ya too,” she snickered, nodding in doe-eyed-girl’s direction.
“No way!” I said, whipping my head around to see what she meant. Sure enough, doe-eyed girl had brought a lunch box from home.
That does it. I’m playing hooky the next time I’m called for hot-lunch duty.
–Jennifer DuBose, M.S., C.A.S. has been a Clinical Member of The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy(AAMFT) since 1995. Got a question or concern you’d like her to address? Nothing is off limits. If you’re a parent and it’s on your mind, chances are you’re not alone. Don’t suffer the wonders. Send your questions to parentingisntforsissies@hotmail.com. Your name and other identifying information will be kept strictly confidential.