Monday, April 04, 2005
 

Back in the Day

School lunches cost $1 (assuming you weren't getting reduced price lunch) when I was in elementary school. You'd go into the gym in the morning and stand in line to pay, either for the day or for the week. At the end of the gym, far far against the back wall, sat two cafeteria ladies who very much resembled Chris Farley's cafeteria lady from SNL, except scarier. They sat at those generic plastic-topped, metal-legged tables with open metal cashboxes in front of them. I was vastly intimidated by the who process, I think because there was so much vacant space on all sides of you in the mostly-empty gym. And gyms always freak me out, anyway. For some reason, I was also always afraid that I wouldn't have the correct payment and waited in dread each time I had to do this (I mostly paid by the week, so it was just Mondays).

It was at this time that I developed my deep love of government commodity cheese, a "food" product for which I still have cravings to this day. They also made the best grilled cheese sandwich in the world (probably all that butter-- hey, who was doing health-conscious lunches in the 1980s?-- and fake-o cheese). Grilled cheese sandwich day: ah, my heart skips to think of it. I also liked the vegetable-beef soup, though I only ate the liquid portion of it. I accomplished this by flattening my spoon shallowly in the (Styrofoam, which no doubt added to the unique flavor) bowl and skimmed off the liquid. Now that I think back, there were always oily spots in the liquid. Again, that's probably why I liked it.

I also liked to pull out the interior portion of the rolls and eat that. Not the rest of the bread, just the inside.

And when we had grapes, I'd put them in my mouth and bite down enough to squeeze out the liquid. I'd then return the dessicated grape to the tray.

I must have been a delight to dine with. Fortunately, grade-school eating companions aren't particularly finicky about table manners.

Fast-forward to junior high, the hell years. You paid at a table right before you entered the cafeteria (same cloned scary ladies, same table, same metal cashbox-- which I'm sure, my junior high being what it was, got knocked off at some point). Everyone kept their $1.10 in their shoe: it was the best way to ensure the money wouldn't be stolen during the course of the day. I now pity the money-takers and hope they were wearing plastic gloves like all the other cafeteria people.

The key was to pray that your teacher (or, again, my junior high being what it was, I should probably say "teacher," given that they were apparently mostly there to babysit us until we went to jail) let you out early enough so that you could get in line inside the cafeteria. The cafeteria wasn't nearly big enough for all the students (even in one grade) to eat in the room at the same time, let alone get in line in the room. So, most of the time, the line extended way, way outside. This was the dangerous part; there was little supervision outside, paving the way for verbal taunts at the least, a bit of shoving perhaps, and perhaps a fight. A full-fledged fight was a breach of decorum, however: for those of us with proper etiquette, a fight was properly saved until after you were out of the cafeteria.

After we ate, we'd get sent outside, to the blacktop behind the school (ie, the once-fully-paved area with a wrecked and rusty basketball goal, and that's about it). This was the most dangerous time of the day. For a shy nerd ("nerd" being the designation applied to anyone who read printed words and / or wore glasses; you also had to fall outside the redneck or sports guys and their hangers-on to be ostracized), standing with other people was a must. There were no places to sit down, so we'd just stand there awkwardly (in the case of my group, as far at the fringes as possible) until the bell rang to go inside. Within this time, fights were common. They were violent and required multiple burly male teachers (excuse me, "teachers") to break it up. The problems of ending the fight were worsened by the fact that everyone (nerds and other social rejects excluded) would rush the fight and crowd around it, egging it on. The teachers had to break through layers upon layers of overly-hormonal teenagers to get to the source of the fight itself.

These fights should not be confused with the fights that took place in classes, between classes, before school, after school (especially at the bus load-up area), and at pep rallies (another bane of my existence).

I'm scarred for life by a fight that broke out in my French class once. Last names deleted, but Krystal and Jereusha got into it in the middle of the classroom (which was a mobile unit, to be precise), and Krystal tore out one of the huge hoop earrings Jereusha always wore. It's no wonder I waited until I was 24 to get my ears pierced.

Oh, and one time, in sex ed, where girls mostly brought in pictures of their ultrasounds (we also had a oujia board, for when we'd seen all the pictures-- after all, sex ed wasn't exactly a needed course at this school), a girl pierced her own nose with a safety pin or needle, I forget which. She jammed something-- it may have been an earring-- in there. Over the course of a week or so, it (gasp!) got infected, and it got crusty and black around the edges. She resolved this contamination process by removing the earring or whatever it was and licking the infection goo off of it before re-inserting it in her nose. I've often wondered if that nostril is still fully intact.

So, what I learned in sex ed:
1. [direct quotation, aimed at me; we were in eighth grade] "Girl, when you have a baby, you be screamin'."
2. Ultrasounds are confusing to look at, especially when someone semi-illiterate too-young parent (and, sadly, I'm not being snide here) is explaining them to you.
3. Don't pierce your own body parts. At least don't do it in class, where everyone has to watch.
4. This was no doubt part of the curriculum: I learned how to use a ouijia board. Not that I ever got to touch it, of course. I was a nerd. Nerds don't get to touch the toys. A group of girls used to hole up in a corner of the classroom, hold hands, and start praying for the souls of those doing the "black magic." As I recall, this was mostly limited to questions like "Does Dale like me?" "Who's gonna ask me to the dance?" "Am I having a boy or a girl?"

You know, now that I think about it, I can't even remember who "taught" that class. I don't even remember an adult presence in the classroom. I don't remember if there was a textbook or something. I don't remember if there were tests. Frankly, the earring incident is what sticks with me the most. Seeing people's ultrasounds was a quite common thing, nothing special.

When junior high ended, at 10th grade, I jumped ship and went to the private school my younger brother already attended. My first comment upon touring the school: "Why don't the lockers have locks?" I'm not proud of bailing out of a sinking ship, but that ship was going down with or without me, and, to extend the metaphor, students and the "teacher" variety of teacher were holding my head under water.

When I entered the private school in 10th grade, I had never taken a midterm, let alone an exam. Never. I was not used to orderly classrooms. I was not used to walking down a hallway that wasn't a crush of people. I was not used to the absence of fear. I had taken very few tests that were not either open-book or open-notebook (or, often, both) since elementary school. In short, I had a lot of catching up to do. Spending those last three years in the private school at least made me aware that learning (and not sports or sleeping around) had some value, and I learned how to study, which saved me in college, given that I had absolutely no study skills (having homework was extremely rare in junior high). My graduating class had 30 people in it, and I calmed down considerably in the smaller environment (which, in turn, made me realize that I needed to attend a smallish college). Teachers actually appreciated learning skills and would help if you had problems (cough*geometry*cough).

A lot of the students who'd always been in that school or had been there for a long time were pretty jaded. I certainly wasn't what you'd call happy (hey, I was a teenager-- one inclined to reading depressing European novels in her spare time), but it was such a relief to be there. I was still shy, but the fear was gone.

Of course, this was also the time that the all-consuming hysteria about grades began. And continued through college. And continues today.

But at least I can say that no one has robbed me or threatened me with a knife (knock on wood on both accounts) since I left the doors of the junior high for the last time.

You know one thing I resent the most about junior high? We were dropped off every morning in the "keyhole," an area that wrapped around in a U-shape to the place where students were dropped off (we weren't let in the school before first bell, because of safety, theft, etc., etc.). On the side of the U opposite the drop-off area, there was a chain-link fence that separated the keyhole from the practice fields. Morning glory grew on the fence. Every time I saw the morning glory, I knew that it was over, that I was going to have to get out of the car, that I was going to have to face another day in there.

To this day, I get a sinking feeling when I look at morning glory. In one part of my mind, it's a vine that I like. In another part, it will always be tied to misery in my mind.

I intended to blog about outside vendors at the local high school. Obviously, I got off track. But tomorrow's another day . . .

Reading: in between novels; reading psychological mysteries by Sebastien Japrisot
Listening: Most recently, Steve Earle.
Current Obsession: Writing on my walls. I find it highly theraputic.
Alice: is hyperventilating about the oncoming spring, especially since we can open windows. She loves the outdoor sights, sounds, and smells; she pushes her cute little face up as close as she can possibly get it to the screen and twitches her nose constantly. It's pwecious.

Elvisette philosophized at 9:30 AM