Lunch for a school age child, is a major part of the school
day. It is a time for the exchanging of corny jokes and
anecdotes, for talking with those that you don't get a chance
to see during the day, and lastly for getting that nourishment
one needs to sustain them through the remainder of the school
day.
When you are in elementary school lunch to you is that
forty minute break everyday where the teacher makes you
stay seated and quiet, while you eat your lunch off of that
hard plastic tray. Lunch for an elementary schooler means
food that is mainly prepared by the school and few other
options, save packing. You eat your highly nutritious lunch
with an actual metal fork and drank that cartoned milk that
always tastes strangely reminiscent of cardboard. The
teachers that you come to lunch with all sit at two very long
tables at the opposite end of the cafeteria; as they eat they are
watching your every move.
After your class is finished eating the teacher dismisses
you by tables so that one can place their tray where the
dish-washing lunch lady is waiting. Your teacher is then
found impatiently awaiting you and your classmates at the
cafeteria doors where she expects a single file line to be
formed. (This can take nearly ten minutes). Then it is off
again to your class room so that you can restart your studies
or to take that ever popular post lunch nap!
Years past those elementary lunches one finds that the
lunches change drastically--You aren't forced to walk in
straight lines with your teachers to lunch, nor are you forced
to remain quiet while eating. What a difference that makes.
Lunch for a high school student is that twenty five minute
time frame, which seems much smaller. During this time one
can sit with whomever they would like at whatever table
pleases them. The teacher, whose class that you are in, may
eat where ever they please--More often you can find them in
the...