02 June 2008

Three Granola Bars For Your Thoughts

When I was in elementary school, my parents both worked full time. As a result, my sisters and I rode the city bus to school every day. We settled into a routine fairly quickly. We'd wait next to the road for the bus or end up run for it, depending on the day. Hopping on, each one of us flashing our cool bus passes, we'd greet the regular driver we nicknamed "Weird". We told him our names and he said his name was "Weird". It stuck with us girls and so it goes, Weird would drive us to school every morning.

Some days the city bus would also have our school mates aboard. The older boys were merciless teasing us relentlessly over our homemade lunches. These lunches were notoriously 'yucky'. I would end up sitting in the back and clutching my frozen lunch.

Why frozen, you ask?

My stepmom had this time-saving routine of preparing our lunches a week in advance. They were sandwiches with some combination of homemade bread, a slice of tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise or mustard. She would line the freezer with 20 sandwiches in folded, plastic baggies. We'd pull them out on the day they were to be used. The theory was when the sandwiches came out of the freezer before school, they would be thawed by lunch time.

In theory, this was time management at best. In reality, they were the grossest lunches ever to grace a cafeteria table. Frozen lettuce and mayo? Not a good combination.

In theory, these delicious morsels should not be soggy, tomato-ey, homemade bread dripping with watery mayo and limp lettuce. You can imagine, the lunches were so bad that even the lunch monitor did not make us eat the soggy mess. Could you blame them?

We also had the times where my parents were too broke for even a soggy sandwich. Now, I empathize with their dilemma. We were a poor family of six. There was no such thing as discounted or free lunch available. They made do with what they could which started with big bread bags of buttery popcorn for lunch.

The Cafeteria turned into Wall Street. Popcorn for hot dogs. Hot Dogs for banana. Popcorn for juice. Popcorn for a bag of Cheetos. Cheetos for cookies. Cookies for brownies. Not bad bartering for a fifth grader with baking soda pits.

I look back at those times as I feel mixed emotions. I feel guilty writing nominal checks for my kids' discounted lunches. It's assistance, but when you got to, you got to. I remind myself, it could be worse. I write my checks and breathe a thankful sigh that I'm not stuffing popcorn into bread bags.

~Bee still says, "Hold the tomato!"

21 comments:

cathouse teri said...

Well I get the idea that if you have no money, a homemade bread sandwich with lettuce and tomato and mayo is a good thing. In fact, I'm sure that's a good, healthy sandwich. But frozen? And then soggy? And unable to be eaten? Seems hardly nutritious to eat nothing at all.

Was stepmom just a dummy?

Heffalump said...

Ah...your lunch makes me thankful for having to eat a plain PB and J every day when I was in grade school. I got so sick of it that I still don't much like PB and J sandwiches. Occasionally we would get that thin sliced lunchmeat, you know, the buddig kind? Only my Mom's idea of a good amount of meat was two of those paper thin slices per sandwich.
Me, I am grateful that we can get reduced lunches and that I don't have to feed my kids Ramen for dinner every night. We are blessed.

Heather said...

When I was a kid I got free lunches so I know where you are coming from. (In fact I guess--I don't remember, we ate a lot of squirrel and other little shoot able animals. ) The freezing thing--you know, we do that with peanut butter and jelly--because it works and the kids LIKE knowing they can grab a sandwich , but I can't imagine doing it with soggy stuff--in fact I HATED soggy sandwiches and often threw away anything with tomato (I didn't eat mayo--ever). Oh, and we weren't allowed to trade without permission.

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

I owe my mum and apology, I think.

The Lazy Iguana said...

At least you learned the barter system!!

No economics class could do a better job.

Trade you my post about BS for this one!

Suzy-Q said...

Good grief no wonder you were so skinny!

Aren't there some frozen sandwiches for kids now? Frozen PB&J? Still sounds yucky though.

R said...

I will no longer feel guilty giving my kids peanuts, graham crackers, and raisins for lunch when I don't feel like making a sandwich anymore. Gee whiz!

Mayo frozen should be illegal.

You did pretty well under the circumstances though. I remember feeling horrid if my mom ran out of brown lunch bags and I had to use a grocery bag. The kids would make fun of me no matter what though. I just got hairs in my food all the time.

Gen said...

Oh man, yeah. Lettuce? I can't imagine freezing that on bread with mayo and then eating it soggy. Poor thing!

I did suggest freezing sandwiches once to my husband who struggles to find time to get a lunch together before work. He refuses. I read that if you put butter on the bread then make the sandwich (MINUS lettuce and tomato and things that should be FRESH) it won't be soggy. We've never tried it, though.

Liquid said...

Hmmmmmmmmmm.........
Now I feel better.

I've enjoyed my visit here!

Momo Fali said...

Oh, poor you! Soggy sandwiches are the worst!

There is nothing wrong with using assistance when it's available to you. Nothing.

Minnesota Matron said...

I grew up poor, too. One year my mom 'forgot' about Brownie camp. I was devastated, just ripped apart and felt totally betrayed that she'd forgotten. Only later did I realize there was probably no money for Brownie camp-- or food -- and she didn't want me to know that.

brooke said...

Wow... There are certain things that just should never be frozen, and I'm pretty sure that lettuce is one of them. So sorry... I'm glad you turned out okay in spite of it.

Mary Alice said...

Hmmmmmm we were poor and home schooled. Yummmy pinto beans and homemade bread for lunch. Sometimes though we had bread and pinto beans. See it's exciting to change the order of words.

Whistle Britches said...

I remember when from time to time we actually got to eat Campbell's Chicken and Noodles WITH Crackers.
A fine delicacy if I may say.

And Strawberry Shortcake (with strawberries from my grandad's garden) was what I imagined the Queen must be eating.

Jo Beaufoix said...

Noooooooo. Forzen lettuce and soggy bread is just wrong. Shiver. I feel quite traumatized. I love the popcorn trading though. Fabulous. I would expect no less of you lovely Bee.

holly said...

wait. if she'd have just put the slices of each thing in different containers, they could have been thrown together morning-of! she should so have consulted me on this. why didn't she call?

i had bologna. i had paper bags with my name printed on. i feel bad now. although the post-divorce years, i had cardboard. for a sandwich. it all evens out.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I hate to think of what this woman put on the dinner table at night; you poor thing. Before you even mentioned it, I thought about how the poor lunch ladies must have felt. I, too, was raised with very little means. My older sisters remember eating salt pork sandwiches as kids and stealing food from neighbors. It wasn't that bad for me (further down the line), but we did get free lunches. Ten years ago, when Hubby lost his job and we had a brand new baby and a brand new house (thousands of miles from family), I had no problem going to apply for food stamps. We paid into the system for years; it's there to help people in a bind. Thankfully, we managed to get back on our feet and recover. I'm glad you have support.

Blank said...

Geez. Why not just freeze the bread separately.... Oh, you know. I mean, it sounds deliberately stupid. And icky.

Mr. Pink used to talk about having popcorn for dinner, fed to him by his stepmonster, until his dad (worked evenings) found out. They were poor, too.

Anonymous said...

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

And I'm always 'hold the tomato'. Unless they're fried green tomatoes like I had the other night. But you wouldn't put those on sandwiches. :)

Jaina said...

I'm suddenly not hungry anymore...

Anonymous said...

You know, you just gotta do what you gotta do. Unfortunately so many people have come to take advantage of it that most get lumped. We got Food Stamps for a few years and got lumped in with loafers because of it, when in reality it is what fed my children, my family. There's no shame in that, what-so-ever!

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