The lunch line

By Maura Ebel

There was nothing more exciting to the eleven year old me, than when mom would forget to make me a lunch. It made me feel so grown up to go through the lunch line with all the big kids who paid for their lunches, and could make that daunting decision of juice versus milk, then the flavor, and don’t forget the ice-cream. It was like liberation for someone like me, I couldn’t get over the overwhelming feelings of satisfaction, and maturity I had for those 30 minutes that I got to show off to my other eleven year old friends who had brown paper bags, or the fancy lunchboxes with built in compartments, and an icepack. Even these expensive home made lunches could notcompare to my fantastic feat of choosing my own lunch! Clearly it was not as courageous as I make it out to be, but this is how the memoryhas formed and planted itself in my brain. The idea that this was the highlight of my day in elementary school is a bit disappointing, and the fact that I thought this was the makings of a successfulperson is displeasing as I look back on it now.

The real memory of elementary lunch time comes into play when my six year old little brother, Jake, began kindergarten. Very nervous, of course, he began his first days as a student. Being 5 years older I viewed him as being too insecure, and needed to “learn something about growing up”. Constantly I was having to explain to him the ways of the big kids (very aggravating for a ten year old). All my aggravations came to a head the first day my mom forgotnot only my lunch -- but Jakes as well. There I was strutting my stuff through the lunch line tray,picking out my milk (chocolate of-course) bringing my $1.25 right up to the terror of the lunch lady. After basking in my glory, my class began again,soon those old catholic school loud speakers paged my name and asked me to find my way to the lunch room. So I head downstairs to find Jake, in absolute terror of the lunch line. He just couldn’t understand how mom could have forgotten him like that. Maybe it was because of mom, or maybe it was the partially illiterate lunch lady with no hair left because it fell into the food, I truly don’t know. But-- I do know that I was angry, the kid was crying and all I could say was your gonna have to grow up sometime.

For a short period of time it irrationally haunted me that Jake was not able to handle himself. I was scared he wouldn’t succeed like my older brother had in my eyes. Over time this grew into a curiosity about who he would be when he was 12 years old. At the time I was angry he was not like me, and didn’t experience things like me. Now he is 12 and is still nothing like me in the case of his interests, but he has so many talents and interests I could just never have excelled in. It’s amazing to see that little personality I was so angry with that day six years ago become something that I could never have.