As it turns out, substitute teaching responsibilities extend far beyond the classroom. Sometimes you have to drop off kids at the art room, peruse the playground at recess, create obstacle courses in the gym, etc. but the most harrowing of all substitute teaching duties takes place in the lunch room.
Lunch duty is not a task for the faint of heart. The school cafeteria can at times resemble a war zone complete with edible ammo and ferocious warriors digging their way through garbage can trenches. It's also a place that fosters nostalgia seeing as very little has changed regarding cuisine since my days of munching on bosco sticks and cartons of milk.
While working lunch duty there are a couple of roles that require immediate attention, the first being condiment person. This means squeezing dollops of ketchup and ranch onto the plastic trays held out by eager childish arms in the buffet line. In theory, it's an easy job, but on chicken patty day for instance, we're talking back-to-back smiley face ketchup designs on each student's soggy bun. Plus the kids start filing in in rapid succession and all it takes to clog up the whole system is that one kid who can't decide if they want "mustard on the hotdog or on the side to dip it in."
Another important lunch duty role is what I call the officer. Typically there are two or three teachers assuming this role who wander the cafeteria opening milk cartons, shushing kids, and preventing food fights. Each officer has their own particular threshold of audio sensitivity (or in other words, some teachers'll let the kids chat, and some want silence).
Perhaps held in a slightly higher regard among the lunch officers are the commanders (disregard the oddly militant theme here, just been reading a lot of world news lately). There's only one of these per lunch duty and it's their job to command the audience. While some prefer to entertain by reading a book aloud over a microphone, others go for a more unconventional route through offering up a makeshift stage for children to perform dances and songs in front of their lunchtime spectators.
To be completely honest (aside from the food), lunch these days is so dissimilar from my personal experiences as kid. Mind you I went to Cornish Elementary which housed under 100 kids between kindergarten through fourth grade combined. That aside, I remember lunch being such a blast. Long fold out tables meant everybody sat shoulder-to-shoulder, never a loner or castaway. I remember chocolate chip cookie Thursday––a weekly occurrence in which students could purchase a lunch dessert for an economical 25 cents a pop. For every quarter I forgot on each Thursday, my best friend Katie always seemed to have an extra (baby's first loan!)
When I was in elementary school, students always helped serve lunch, in fact it was an honor to scoop canned peaches and coleslaw onto your classmates' lunch trays. I for one, remember wearing hair nets with pride on those special days. And I didn't even eat hot lunch! I just liked the thrill of "working a real adult job" during school hours. Luckily for me, my mom packed me insanely over-the-top lunches from home right up until my final day of senior year. And we're not talking your average PB & J with the crust cut off; "made with love"; note in the paper bag bullshit; we're talking a Gordon Ramsey level smorgasbord of eats every single day. Whether it was fresh croissants from some bakery in Portland, an actual mini tiered cake for dessert, or an array of stonewall kitchen jams, crackers, and tea sandwiches, my mom pretty much held the title for best school lunch packer 13 years in a row.
That aside, I also recall there being a "quiet table" at the front of the cafeteria which misbehaved children were banished to to finish their meals in silence. But more than anything, I remember sounds of chatter. Unlike today, catching up with friends was allowed and even encouraged at lunch time. There was laughter and there were smiles, yelling, and yes even open-mouth chewing.
Nowadays, the pandemic and a general prevention of children connecting through verbal physical, and emotional means has ushered out the era of good lunch feelings. It's led the modern-day school cafeteria to become a place of strict business: open your mouth, chew, and shut it again afterwards. I mean the kids are set up at individual desks spread apart the space and they aren't allowed to do so much as twist around to greet the person sitting behind them. And as much as I'd like to say I let students do as they please, I work for the teachers at the end of the day. It's my job to enforce what they do.
The small jobs such as hand sanitizing, dismissing students to dump their trays, and motivating kids to finish all of their food, fall under the pay grade of all adults at lunch. But the larger milk spills, applesauce explosions, and knocked over bottles of water are by and large taken care of by custodial staff.
Throughout the past month, I've served my time as a newbie in all three lunch duty roles and have determined my top two grossest lunch room encounters witnessed thus far.
Allow me to set the scenes:
#1: Milk and ground beef, what a combo
Nachos may not seem like the most sensible, nutrient-dense, or delicious lunchtime offering for a heaping of first graders, but then again it's chips and cheese and beef and what 6-year-old is gonna turn that down?
I knew it was "Nacho Day," thanks to the audible enthusiasm from the students in my class earlier that day. I had always preferred real melted cheese on my tortilla chips over the Velveeta-esque plastic containers of cold yellow sauce offered by schools, but I'm trying to yuck less yums these days so I joined in the kids' excitement as I walked them down to the cafeteria at lunch time. As the kids filed in, collected their trays, and sat at their assigned desks, I began my rounds. The plastic trays held an expected portion of about six tortilla chips decorated with ground beef and nacho cheese on the side. Since everybody knows a fruit cancels out a junk food, the students were given a serving of grapes as well as their usual chocolate or white milk carton.
Now I know kids are infamous for playing with food and coming up with ridiculous concoctions. I know that prepubescent minds prioritize getting a laugh from peers versus filling their bellies with food in proper form... but I really thought "Nacho day" would be a tough one to get grotesquely creative with.
That's when a little hand shot up towards the front of the cafeteria. Naively thinking it would be a student asking to use the bathroom or for help opening their milk, I approached a little girl with blonde hair and pink glasses. I bent down as I normally do in the noisy room to hear what it was she wanted. To my surprise, she didn't need to ask me anything, in fact the only thing she seemed to want from me was my attention and gag reflex. She motioned with her eyes and a grin to the spoon in her hand above her plastic lunch tray.
And there it was.
Just when I thought this meal would be one of normalcy and grateful children, a little girl with blonde hair and pink glasses proved me a fool. The spoon which she promptly shoved into her mouth had a heaping pile of beef sitting in a pool of chocolate milk. I looked down at her plate to see she had created a stew of sorts with the two ingredients and appeared to be going for seconds. Without as much as a "that is disgusting!" I thought to myself, not my lunch, not my problem, and walked away.
#2: Fresh squeezed bean juice?
For me (both currently and throughout adolescence) there are few dishes that spark aversion as severe as brown hotdogs and beans. The smell, the color, the representation––everything about this dish haunts me. And believe me, as a Mainer and frequent childhood church supper attendee, I know how sacrilege that is.
So anyway, you can imagine my hesitation to be on lunch duty when the morning announcements stated that "today is beans and hot dogs!" in an all-too-animated voice over the intercom. With what I could only describe as the opposite of "pep in my step," I made my way to the lunch room behind a trail of kindergarteners. I was immediately put on condiment duty, which aside from a few kids who took way too long to decide whether they wanted "just ketchup or ketchup and mustard," was painless.
As usual, I shouldn't have counted my blessings so soon.
Most everybody seemed to be politely munching on the vile array of meat sticks, bread, and pungent legumes. A few stragglers here and there refused to even try their lunches, which for once, I actually let slide knowing full well that I'd be doing the same if I were them. Suddenly, triggering slight PTSD from the nacho experience, a hand––this time from a little boy in a black short sleeve––went up in the air.
I took a deep inhale and put one foot in front the other as I made my way to the vertical arm. It's pretty hilarious the way some little little kids raise their hands. They practically dislocate their shoulders and wiggle their fingertips as if the higher they reach the more pleased and therefor willing a teacher will be to assist them.
What I found proved to be equally obnoxious and exceedingly repulsive as the last time.
The boy's head was tucked down towards his tray, lips surrounding a plastic straw held in place by a tiny thumb and index finger. This is standard kindergarten etiquette when drinking milk, only it wasn't milk that this boy's straw was sunken into. He had stuck his straw into the thick, syrupy, brown three-inch deep puddle of juice that sat in his portioned cup of baked beans.
I couldn't help it this time. There was now world in that moment that I couldn't react if I too were a five-year-old peer of this little boy. I looked him straight in the eyes, and while convulsing my shoulders inward towards my now cupped hands, made a gagging motion complete with my tongue out and a loud "bleaahhhh!" gagging noise.
He removed his mouth from the straw, leaned back, and let out a half laugh/half burp.
It was in that moment that I truly understood 3 pm happy hours.
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