Erica

I was never the poorest kid in school, nor the richest. I was average. Never popular, never really bullied. I didn’t like my junior high and high school years, but then, many kids don’t. I wasn’t suicidal or even depressed, just pretty moody, really. Lunches were the worst. Societal judgment at it best, or worst, depending on how you looked at it.

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Bringing your lunch as a step up from eating in the cafeteria. If you ate the school food everyone assumed you were on free lunch, and that was bad. You didn’t want people to think that. But if you brought your lunch there was judgment too. I think the fact that none of us had enough money to make clothes or cars the important part, something had to show status. When the whole population is a bunch of farmers, no one really stands out much. If you brought your lunch, you at least had enough money for food at home. Then what you brought–that was really important too. Was it a nice sandwich on store bought white bread–that was good. A PB& J on homemade wheat bread–that was the bottom of the barrel, right down there with bringing leftover meatloaf. The special few had things like crackers and cheese or –gasp–canned fruit. A tiny can of fruit was made you the most popular girl in the school.

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Me, I was fine…I brought the average. That is, until the day my dad thought he would be funny, and put that thermos in my lunch. He thought it would help my mood. I guess something bad had happened the day before, and I complained a lot that night. So he put my lunch in the red thermos. I didn’t even know where he got it…it was beat up and rough around the edges, and had that awful logo on the top-that cigarette brand. I didn’t smoke, I was not part of that crowd. It was ugly and awful.

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So, I opened my nice paper bag (not too smooth and neat, but nicely crumped and worn looking but still smell free–I thought it would be a good day) to find that thing, filled with soup and some crackers on the side. It took me years to live that down. Two teachers swooped down, confiscated it and bought me a school lunch (tater tot hot dish, to make matters even worse.) I was humiliated. “No Tabaco Products or Ads in School, Please” they all said. My friends laughed at what an awful thing my mom had done. I hoped it would blow over in a few days, but three years later when I graduated, that damn thermos came back to haunt me…my nickname in the yearbook senior year was Marlboro Lady. Yeah, I never lived it down.