School Lunch?

Did they fix the school lunch program, and no one bothered to tell us? Chicken soft tacos? Pizza Hut? You have a choice - no, three choices today? There's a menu?? And it's not a bunch of little squares on a sheet of goldenrod?? And you're in Kindergarten?? The hell you say!

I had the pleasure of attending five different schools during my K-6 years, and the school lunch program was the same at every single one, and as I recall went something like this (shout out if you remember this too):
1) Everyone lines up by the door alphabetically, meaning that the same kids got screwed every single day. Not that I'm bitter about it or anything. . . :)
2) You all tromp down the hall and join 400 other kids waiting in line for lunch. Your teacher, on the other hand, runs off someplace to smoke or drink - or who knows what else. . .
3) You get up to the front of the line, take a plastic tray and proceed down an assembly line of cafeteria workers, each one more surley than the last, who then slop little piles of either different colored sludge or canned vegetables onto your tray with a little clicky ice-cream scoop. There is no 'choosing'. Did you want the 'dinner roll' with the little bubble? Too bad. Next!
4) You hope, in vain, to avoid getting cigarette ash in your corn this time.
5) And fail.
6) And then sit down at a table, pick at your sludge, and hope the milk that was left sitting in a crate next to the radiator since this morning hasn't curdled yet.

All through this you never once saw an adult eating any of the food that was being served, and usually there was a rule that you had to take one bite of everything on your plate before you were allowed to throw it away. Didn't like the cole slaw last time? Too bad! Take another bite this week - and we'll know if you just try to push it around with your fork! We're watching you!

Lunches did get slightly better in junior high and highschool as I think people started realizing that there were a few students who had begun to develop critical reasoning skills (i.e. if I can't tell what it is, then perhaps I shouldn't place it in my mouth...), so these students were placated with omnipresent hamburgers. Those still weren't very good, but thanks to McDonalds everyones expectations had already been lowered to the point where they became acceptable. I'm jealous of the new school lunch program. Damn. . . Though, every now and then, I do get a little craving for that old-school 'mashed potatos and turkey gravy' where the gravy came from that big can. . . Yeah, that was alright. . .