Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Tasty is in the Eye of the Cheeseholder

Not a Chula Vista Cheese Sandwich, but damn close


In case you haven't already heard, the big news in the Times of Los Angeles, California yesterday was this important piece about the poor, taste-deprived children who had to get cheese sandwiches as their school lunches when their miscreant parents didn't pay up on their school lunch debts (these unfortunate urchins will heretofore be referred to as The Cheese Sandwich Kids™).

Apparently, this has been a very effective form of reducing school lunch debt, because in addition to the whole wheat bread and slice of cheese, The Cheese Sandwich Kids™ are being served up a hefty side of shame with their sandwiches. The article reads,

One Chula Vista third-grader, whose mother requested that the girl not be identified, said students sometimes ostracize The Cheese Sandwich Kids™, switching tables and talking behind their backs."Some kids say they're not the kind of kids you want to hang out with," she said.

That last quote slays me: "Some kids say [The Cheese Sandwich Kids™] are not the kind of kids you want to hang out with." Oh. My. Lord. Yes, that is every mother's nightmare—one day having her child come home with one of them there cheese-sandwich-munching twerps. Imagine, if you will, the following conversation:

[Junior has just come home from school to see his/her mother standing, apron-clad with a few words of wisdom after hearing about the whole Cheese Sandwich Kids™ situation at school ]

Mother: Now Junior, if I ever catch you with one of those Cheese Sandwich Kids™, you're going to get a bottom paddling like you've never experienced before. I raised you to be better than that. You better only be hanging with the Hot Lunch Kids®, or Tasty Sack Lunch Children™.

Junior: Awwww, gee Mom, piss off.

[Junior defiantly shoves seven slices of pasteurized process American cheese food into gaping cakehole]

I hope and pray to the sweet food Lord in Heaven that in the ten years I've been a mother, I've taught Cody and Colton enough core values that they won't be running around with those mangy Cheese Sandwich Kids™. Because if they did, let me tell you, there would be hell to pay! [pounds fist hard on computer keys]

Seriously though folks, what did you get in your lunches when you were a kid? Guess what I got in my brown paper sack a lot of times? Yes, you are correct, a cheese sandwich. I was just grateful not to get a butter sandwich.*

Oddly enough, when I ate my cheese sandwich I was not ostracized; I was not heckled in the playyard by children who ate higher up on the school lunch food chain. Granted, pretty much everyone I went to school with was middle-class or downright poor. No, wait, maybe it wasn't because of our social class that we had cheese sandwich lunches, maybe it was because back then our schools and our parents didn't cater much to our tiny taste buds. A good lunch day for me was when I got a bag of Doritos or a Twinkie, and that didn't happen all too often.

So this whole situation leaves me begging answers to these questions:

• When did kids get so spoiled?
• When did it become abuse to provide a free lunch to a child?
• And why, ever since I read this article, am I craving nothing less than a homemade cheese sandwich?

I need answers, people.

*Kids who get butter sandwiches roll with a set referred to as The Buttercream Gang™. The Cheese Sandwich Kids™ have been rumored to be a splinter group of The Buttercream Gang™.

5 Comments:

At 6/21/2007 6:16 AM, Blogger David said...

tt97,
Submitted for you approval, mug-shots of FBI’s most wanted. Please be advised that these men are considered both armed and dangerous. If encountered, do not attempt to apprehend- Call the proper authorities immediately.

-erd

 
At 6/21/2007 3:09 PM, Blogger Moonery said...

Oh Heavens! What an entertaining read this was...

One of these days, Elizabeth will have to tell you about when her family was so poor sometimes she'd get a thermos of water and a baggie of uncooked macaroni for lunch. Maybe that should be the new alternative lunch, and then perhaps I'd feel a swell of pity in my bowels for these kids. Or perhaps indegestion from the massive lunch I just consumed. Dunno.

 
At 6/26/2007 8:49 PM, Blogger jez said...

Oh man, I'm just wiping my eyes right now. Too much Charise®, too much.

If it were not for these kind of situations there would be no people with such highly aquired tastes for - I dunno, powdered milk, peanut butter snacks (made from powdered milk) and Top Raman® seasoning packets.

 
At 11/26/2008 8:04 AM, Blogger David said...

Do you still write?

 
At 12/11/2008 6:35 AM, Blogger David said...

Charise,
Can you send me an email at blueislandalmanack at gmail dot com? I'd like to extend a blogging invitation.

 

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