Before She Eats

I attempted a parody of Carrie Underwood's 'Before He Cheats' a long time ago, and finally decided to put it on the list of songs over to the right. It's not a great performance on my part, but I felt it might at least be entertaining (maybe), so I figured I would put it up. This particular sonic nightmare was mixed (rescued, really) by a guy named Jay Walsh who can be reached at http://www.farviewrecording.com. If this is your first time here, then I would recommend listening to 'Glamorous' or 'Hey There Vagina' first, as these are really more up to snuff.

Rhianna and Eminem are next up. Additional videos likely. Be afraid. . .

The List

The list. You know, the list. The list of people who if you had a chance to sleep with them (not that you'd ever have a chance), then there is a silent agreement with the wife that it would be ok, because, I mean, damn. I'm not sure how many people y'all get to have on your list, but I get five on mine - chiefly as a result of my dongle hanging on a little hook by the front door. Encased in glass. Along with a little hammer and a note which reads 'Don't you even - '.

I figure that the only way I'd ever get to meet one of the people on my list and have a chance with them would be if like, they were driving around in my neighborhood without an entourage, with a dead cell phone, got a flat tire right in front of my house, and were insatiably horny upon my fixing the tire for them - and that's only if the lighting isn't too good. I changed out our porch lights from 75W to 60W just in case, and keep waiting for that knock on the door. So far zippo.

So without further ado, here's my list for 2008:

1) Natalie Portman. That little ripped up white outfit in Star Wars? To die for!
2) Rihanna. When she has the straight hair in those music videos? Ack!
3) Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. The blue chick from XMEN. Drooo o o o o l.
4) Angelina Jolie. Pretty much any time, anywhere. Duh.
5) Milla Jovovich. She's weird. She's interesting. She'd have to be a great lay.

I know, I know, you're saying what about Halle Berry? What about Victoria Beckham? What about - - - ??? Okay chief, who's on your list?

Kari's House

The five of us had plotted all week. Me, Shane, Josh, Paul, and Bob. Plotted all week to have a sleep-over and then sneak out and go toilet paper Kari Pollreisz’s house. Kari, spelled K-a-r-i, was the future homecoming queen, head cheerleader, and queen of the fake-baked-mall-bitches all in one. She hated us. We openly hated but secretly loved her (or the idea of her anyway), and after enduring months of torment that only adolescents can either dish out or experience fully, we finally decided to get her back. We were going to TP her house. Next weekend. TP it good. Then she would be sorry and take back all those brush-offs, screw-yous, and thinly disguised looks of disdain that we would always garner while making those farting sounds with our arm pits in class. Bitch.

Bob, by virtue of having overheard our conversation at lunch, had to be included in this little endeavor, though everyone (particularly Paul) was skeptical about Bob’s ability to make a meaningful contribution (who's Bob?).

Paul: ‘He’s slow, weak, noisy, and pathetic – whaddaya mean we have to bring him?’
Me: ‘He’ll tell. . .’

And since we were 12, that was enough to secure Bob the outing of his life so far. Oh, I’m sure that Bob has since moved up in the world – probably retired from software engineering at 30 and waking up on his yacht right now as I type, deciding which ex-model will be allowed to welcome him into the world this morning with a bloody mary and a blow job, but this is a story set long ago where we can still poke fun at Bob and not have to follow it with a ‘sir’.

So we all meet up at my house, and Bob brings along all of his Dungeons and Dragons stuff because, well, we need something to do, and Bob will tell, so I guess we’re playing… Also, Bob gets to be the dungeon master, because he’s the only one who really knows how the game is supposed to work – and the only one with the rule books too, so that means he basically gets to tell us all what to do during the game to a large extent as well. Bob may very well have popped his first boner that night - what with all the excitement.

Bob (rolling dice): ‘Wah wah wah.’ <--- That’s how Bob laughs
Shane: ‘What?’
Bob: ‘It seems that the Beholder has taken an interest in you, puny elfling, wah-wah-wah’
Shane: ‘Okay so –‘
Bob: ‘The rest of you guys see Fizgig shoot up into the air and . . ‘
Bob (rolling more dice): ‘.. oh look, he just exploded. Wow. I’ve invented elf-rockets! Wah-wah-wah’
Bob: ‘Someone better collect the dust, maybe you can resurrect him in town.’
Paul: ‘Screw this crap.’
Bob (smug look): …
Me: ‘I’ll get a jar…’

And this pretty much goes on for a few hours, as we down cans of Jolt (remember Jolt?) cola and bags of chips. We get the stupid elf resurrected, we save someone from something – I don’t remember what, and emerge heros. And then it’s time.

About 2am we grab all the toilet paper in the house that we can find, about 12 rolls, and stuff them into backpacks. Josh has brought some from home already – 4 more rolls makes 16. And then naturally we grab the firecrackers too – because we, of course, have to go torment a field full of cows that are on the way. It’s like a tradition. Okay, it’s just a guy thing… Okay, so… Really it’s more like we wanted to try cow-tipping this one time, but we were too chicken to do it, so we threw firecrackers at them instead, and now we sort of just always do it, okay?

We also swipe a couple of beers from the fridge because, uhh, because they are there I guess. I didn’t develop any taste for beer until I was about 22 – and couldn’t hack down enough of it to get a buzz until I was 14, but hey, if it made you look cooler to have it, then you may as well have it right?

Me (popping open a can): ‘Here Bob, go for it.’
Bob: ‘I don’t think that I sh-‘
Me: ‘Oh Christ Bob, it’s just beer, drink it.’
Bob (sipping): ‘I – uGh! Argh!’

Bob says ‘argh’ a lot. It can mean any cuss word. He lives with his gran, if you recall, and she’s the kind of gran that don’t abide no cussin’. In my idle daydreams I sometimes picture Bob sitting in the bathroom with a bar of soap in his mouth, like that little kid in A Christmas Story. Bob hands me back the beer, and I pretend to like the rest of the can as we walk to the cow fields.

We spread the upper gap in the barbed-wire fence and crawl through quietly, approaching our unsuspecting prey – 5 or 6 cows standing in a field unsuspecting. Probably having cow dreams. What exactly they dream about I can’t tell you, but I can tell you that the dreams are about to come to an end –

Paul (lit firecrackers in hand): ‘Hey-oh Cows!!!!!’
Cows: ‘Moo?’
Paul: ‘Artillery!’

And at that we start sticking bottle rockets lightly in the ground, angled towards the cows, and lighting them. *shoom*shoo-shoo-shoom*bang*bang*bang-ang* (I wasn’t brave enough to launch them by hand yet) and Paul throws his firecrackers, and the cows start a mini-stampede to the other end of the field with us preparing to pursue, and Ssssssssssssssss…. *BANG* happens right at our feet.

Paul: ‘Dammit BOB! You don’t stick ‘em in the ground that far!’
Josh: ‘Cows are already gone, dood.’
Bob (abashed, and stammering): ‘O.. Okay.’
And we start a pursuit, and run them into a corner (quietly) where we continue the merciless and senseless onslaught – and Paul is about to bellow an attack order when from behind us: *shoom-shoo-shoo-shoo-shoom* rockets begin whizzing by our heads and veering off-course and hitting the adjacent fence right behind the cows *bang-bang-ang-ang-bang* and this naturally spooks the crap out of them, and they start their mini-stampede again – right towards us.

Paul: ‘Goddammit Bob!!!’
Bob: ‘I-‘
Me (cutting in) ‘RUN.’

And we do run, and probably make more of a production out of running than necessary, but hey it’s a really dark night, and if you get trampled or bit or something, then you’re basically on your own because no one thought to bring a flashlight. We cross to the nearest fence and all scoot through the barbed wire, and from behind me I hear

The darkness: ‘Oh ARGH.’
Me: ‘Bob?’
The darkness: ‘Help!’
Me: ‘Guys, I think Bob is in trouble.’
The darkness: ‘Come on guys…’
The guys (mocking): ‘Come on guys…’
The darkness: ‘I’m stuck!’
The guys: (laughter)

So, I go back for Bob, because Bob’s, well, a little out of his element I guess, and plus he is my friend. Mostly. So I walk back, and Bob is perched kind of straddling the barbed-wire fence, with the crotch of his stylish grey corduroy pants all hung up on the barbed wire (Bob chose corduroys instead of the cheap nasty purple jeans that I usually got stuck with – to each his own I guess).

Bob (having given up trying to free himself): ‘Help?’
Me (sighing): ‘Okay, let me see if I can OHMYGOD–WHAT-HAPPENED?’
Bob: ‘I kinda slipped on the way…’

Bob had, in fact, found himself a fresh cow-pie, ran through it and managed to both lose his shoe and slip and fall into a second cow-pie all at the same time. His pants were trashed. He smelled horrible. And I had to reach into this mess to get him off the fence.

Me: ‘This is love, Bob.’
Bob: ‘Please don’t tell the others.’
Me (fighting back the urge to both vomit and laugh): ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to hide this one.’
Me (still fighting back a giggle): …Want some toilet paper, for… you know… (?)
Bob: …
Me: wah-wah-wah!
Bob: ‘Argh.’

So Bob gets loose, minus a few crotch fibers and the aforementioned shoe. And we talk about it and decide that going back for the shoe would be pointless as he’ll never want to wear it again anyway. No, I am absolutely not making any of this up, you’d just have to know Bob.

So, cows sufficiently spooked, we continued on to Care Bear’s house. Kari the bitch, Kari whose family is loaded, Kari who has never not been on any of the junior high dance, Christmas, homecoming, or whatever courts. Kari, whose book report was on ‘Of Mice and Men’, when asked, reported that the theme of the story was ‘to be nice to everyone (+ tee hee)’ and got an ‘A’ for that smarmy, vapid, future Miss America answer. Kari who was so high up on her throne that she actually sent a follower of hers to come over to our table at lunch time and announce that ‘Kari doesn’t like you’, since it was beneath her to do it herself. She’s getting hers tonight. Maybe we’ll even be lucky enough to wake her up while we’re doing it and then we can see her in her underwear in her bedroom window, we thought. Yah, that would be the icing on the cake alright.

And we’re close now. We’re sticking to the shadows, and have cut all the chatter among us. Toilet paper is handed out and primed silently as we walk. We don’t give any to Bob, despite the fact that he needs it the most. He might trip over a dangling stream and let out an ‘Argh!’ at the wrong time or something. No no, not taking any chances now. And we’re quiet, and we slow down. It’s just around the corner now. Hungry smirks are traded like baseball cards as we try to conceal the fog from our breath on approach. No fingerprints, no trace, no nothing we agreed. Everyone has known their piece of this endeavor since the day before. It will be fast, thorough, and humiliating – that much is certain. And we round the bend, and the tree blocking her house from view from the main road. And we start up the sides of the driveway – all stealthy, like cats. And we stop. And we look up. And wonder. And it was truly, truly the best work of art I had ever seen - even to this day. Absolute mastery, as if someone had decorated for Christmas. The trees were trimmed expertly; the house looked like something from a paper mache ginger bread kit. It was awe-inspiring, but as we stood there, toilet paper in hand, reeking of beer and cow manure, the fact remained that SOMEONE ELSE HAD ALREADY TOILET-PAPERED KARI’S HOUSE EARLIER THAT NIGHT!

Me (tossing my roll of toilet paper to Bob): ‘Here Bob… Argh!...’
Bob (suddenly hopeful): ‘Well, that’s that then. Who’s up for more D&D?’

Inequalities

When you get married, you have to relinquish yourself to having some things that are his & hers. His & hers bath towels for instance. One for him, and one for her. What no one ever tells you before entering into this pact is that 'His & Hers' can extend to other aspects of your relationship, and that separate does not necessarily mean equal. Case in point:

This is 'Her' ice scraper. Actually, it's mine, but she lost hers, so I was nice and let her borrow mine. 4 years ago. We used to live in Minneapolis, where the winters sucked. We got a pair of these for free at a Twins game back in 1999 when we were still dating, and have used them ever since. Great scapers. Virtually indestructable - and they just laugh at the pathetic winters we get here in the Pac NW. Note the long handle so you wont get frostbite while scraping. Note the brush just in case you want to finish off the scraping job and scatter that frost-dust on the ground. This is good. This was mine. This is hers. Now. . .

This is my ice scraper.
It's half of a subway sandwich card. It's only a half because a few years ago I broke off the other half while trying to scrape my windshield. If the camera phone were better, you could see the useful platic coating peeling back from the leading edge of the half-card, which makes it much less efficient at scraping windows than an ordinary half-a-card. The ice curls up and lands perfectly on my finger tips while I am scraping the window no matter what angle I approach it from - at 5am, while my wife sleeps away the morning with the lion's share of the covers in our nice warm bed - but I'm not bitter or anything. I know that I could go to Subway and ask for a new card. I simply understand that in any relationship you need to compromise and sometimes his does not equal hers, and that's OK.

...and it's okay because I have some other cool toys that are mine and mine alone, such as:
Ye' olde time toilet plunger. Yes, this baby is all mine. She never touches it. Never talks about getting her own, never gives me one of those little furtive jealous glances when she sees me using it, never sighs wistfully and bats her eyelashes the way she does when she sees a nice little $5000 tennis bracelet in the store window. Doesn't matter who actually did it, fear not, me and my trusty plunger will come to the rescue time and time again and splook out the problem - whatever it might be. . .

Maybe I'll get her one for our anniverssary. . .

Rocketry

So speaking of rockets, want to bond with your kids? Share a hobby? Do father-son things? Me too! I thought we would try model rockets 'cause the kid likes space. He loves to sit and ponder various goings-on in the solar system such as why there are gaps in Saturn's rings. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time on the internet researching answers to these questions - 'cause although I can operate a motor vehicle, plug in a microphone, and sometimes build a little fort, when it comes to anything academic I have been fortunate enough to have flushed anything more complicated than comparison shopping down the toilet. It was during one of these comparison shopping internet escapades that I saw an ad for a local hobby shop that carried model rockets.

So we go to the hobby shop. And well, uh.. We discover that it's basically some kind of Mecca for geeks. There's your standard computer geek, the model train geek, the RC whatever (don't you dare call it 'remote control') geek, and God knows what other kinds of geeks all clustered under one roof. It's frightening, really, and we shuffle off to the rocket part of the store trying to avoid being fallen over or maybe lit on fire by other shoppers. Upon arriving at the rocket aisle, the kid starts announcing the advertised heights that each different rocket is capable of achieving.

Kid: '1000 feet, 1100 feet, oh look poppa this one goes 2000 feet!!'
Me: 'Mmmhmmm.'

All the while, I am scanning the same model packages as he is, looking for something that says 'Assembles in 10 minutes'. No dice. After a lengthy exchange between the kid and myself, we decided to compromise, which is a good word to know when you're five. We get the rocket that goes 1100 feet, and assembles in about an hour. Now we need, lets see, glue, engines, and a bunch of other... oh, okay, I see, this comes with a launch pad - that's nice - I mean for $30 you'd hope.

Total bill out the door: $45
Dad of the weekend: Priceless

Right? Right. Okay, so we go home and proceed to open the package at the table and read the instructions. The kid, of course, wants to help - and who can blame him - but after reading through the instructions it seems as if making even the tiniest mistake will cause the rocket to veer off course or even disintegrate mid-flight, so I take on the majority of the putting-together part while he dances around me kicking the table at the most inopportune times.

Kid: 'Is it ready yet?'
Me: 'Almost, we have to let this part dry first.'
Kid: 'What does flammable mean?'
Me: 'It means that it can catch on fire.'
Kid: 'What does inflammable mean?'
Me: 'The same thing. English is just weird that way. Where are you seeing that?'
Kid: 'All over the packages and stuff.'

Cheery. So I find a few things for him to do while the rocket dries - including reading about the science behind how it works and how to operate the launcher, and then we're off to the park. According to the instructions, we should find a place that's at least 25'x25' to launch this baby to ensure safety. I figure the back field of an elementary school should do just fine, so we go and set up our launch pad in the middle of a patch of dirt, and point the rocket upwards, and hook up the lau- . . . heyyyy,

Me: 'Stop dancing around that launcher.'
Kid: 'But I want to launch it!'
Me: 'You can, just wait until I am done hooking it up and we do a count down, or you'll accidentally launch it up poppa's shirt.'
Kid: (maniacal laughter)

So I hook up the little alligator clips - while keeping a reeeel close eye on the kid, and then back off, and we do the countdown:

Us: 'Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Blastoff!!'
Rocket: 'SSSSHOOOOOOOOM!!!!!'
Kid: 'Where did it go?'
Me: 'I don't know, I think, lets see... Oh, okay. See that little black spot up there?'
Kid: 'Yeah..(?)'
Me: 'That's it, and.. it's.. drifting.. over those, houses there, and... Okay, so we need to go to the car - right now.'
Kid: 'Okay.'

So we hastily pack up the launch pad and accessories, and beat it to the car to go look for the rocket. We drive around about where it should have landed, but don't see it. I get out of the car, talk to a few people, and look in a few back yards, but it's nowhere to be found. Kid distraught. 25'x25' my ass. Second trip to the hobby shop imminent.

'Okay', I say. 'This time we're going to use the big park next to the school, and we'll just have to wait until there's no people where we are launching it, okay?' So we go back to geek central, get another rocket, and we're on our way. This time, the kid picks out something called the 'Sizzler' which goes 2000 feet according to the package. He's excited. I am a little hesitant, but figure that we have a lot of room to work with in the park. I decide to get all prudent and write my cell number on the side of the rocket, so that if it gets lost, then maybe someone will call us. That's thinkin' now, ain't it?

Second rocket, plus new rocket engines: $25
Dad of the afternoon: Priceless. Right?

Two beers later the rocket is all assembled and also no one has managed to glue their fingers together yet, so we let it dry for a few and then head out to the park. We pick a little corner of the park to set-up in, and angle the rocket ever-so-slightly towards the center of the park, figuring it will land in a nice little sea of green grass, and we'll have the added bonus of being able to tell if anyone (other than us) is in danger.

Us: 'Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Blastoff!!'
Rocket: 'SSSSHOOOOOOOOM!!!!!'
Kid: 'Where did it go?'
Me: 'I don't know, I think, lets see... Oh, okay. See that little black spot up there?'
Kid: 'Yeah..(?)'
Me: 'That's it, and.. it's, wow, that went a LONG way didn't it?'
Kid (jumping up and down): 'Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!'
Me: 'We better start running.'
Kid: 'Yeah!'

And we run across the whole park, length-wise, and lose sight of the rocket along the way. And it's not in the park. And we look, and we look, and finally cross over to the adjacent grade school where we had (ironically) launched the first rocket, and then we see it. Well, part of it anyway - here it is:
As you can see the nose part and parachute had separated from the body at some point, and one of the fins was broken.

Kid (disheartened): 'It's all broken.'
Me: 'I know, we-'
Kid (missing the irony): 'Hey look, at least we still have the phone number part.'
Me: 'We sure do. . .'

So, back to the geek-shop we go. How hard can this be? This time we park and walk in and go to the rocket aisle, and now I'm looking for the biggest, slowest hunk of crap I can find. Preferably something indestrucable too. No more balsa wood for me.

Me: 'Hey [name-of-kid], what about this one??'
Kid: 'It doesn't say how high it will go. . .'
Me: 'Oh but look, it's huge and it has two space shuttles attached to the sides! That's like three rockets in one!'
Kid: 'Yeah!!!'

Oh, I'm sure there is a special circle of hell given to deceivers, but I'm already on that list on account of Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, an imaginary person (Fred) who has periodic gastrointestinal issues, and who knows what else, so I figure it's worth the gamble. So we get the rocket and our make plans to head back to the stupid fucking park.

Third rocket, plus another six-pack: $25
Dad: Whatever.

So I'm a wiz at putting together rockets now, and despite the fact that this one had attachments and complicated things I let the little guy help out too. Hell, why not. And we go to the stupid park, and hook up the stupid rocket, and wait for the stupid people to get out of the stupid way. I point it vaguely 'up'. And we wait. And there's this lady. An elderly lady walking this little dog that is really too small to be allowed, and they're both shaking as they walk. Slo w l y. Nice.

Kid: 'When can we launch the rocket?'
Me: 'We have to wait for that lady there to pass...'
Kid: 'That's a really little dog.'
Me: ' I know.'
Kid: 'Is it trying to poop?'
Me: 'I don't know, probably, hey, umm, I spy with my little eye, something that is - '
Kid: 'Poppa, we already played that game.'
Both of us: ...
Kid (when the lady is now 8 feet away): 'Poppa, why are old people so slow?'
Me (burying my head in my arms): '[name-of-kid], just, shut up.'

And after what seemed like an eternity, seriously, the old lady rounds the corner and we do a countdown and launch the rocket:

Us: 'Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Blastoff!!'
Rocket: 'SSSSHOOOOOOOOM!!!!!'
Kid: 'Where did it go?'
Me: 'I don't know, I think, lets see... Oh, okay. See that little black spot up there?'
Kid: 'Yeah..(?)'
Me: 'That's it, and.. it's, it's landing. on. that. house. over. there...'
Kid (jumping up and down): 'Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!'
Me: 'We better start running.'
Kid: 'Yeah!'

So we go over to the house, and I can actually see the rocket this time, and both shuttles that it carried up along with it. On someone's roof. Wayyyy up there. I scrounge around and find a big long stick, and then pause for a moment. I better ask the homeowner if this is okay... *Bing Bong* a little kid looks through the glass at the side of the door, gets a terrified look on his face, and then runs away. Doh! I deftly hide the big stick behind my back. Door opens, homeowner seems somewhat concerned about the situation, but ultimately agrees to let us fish for the rocket. We fish. We retrieve! It's in one piece! The score is now:

Rockets: 2
Us: 1

So I figure, hey, we can do this, right?. Now, instead of 'vaguely up' I decide to try the ever-so-slightly angled towards the center of the park trick again, figuring, once again, that the rocket and shuttles will splash down nicely in a sea of velvety green grass. Hah!

Us: 'Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Blastoff!!'
Rocket: 'SSSSHOOOOOOOOM!!!!!'
Kid: 'Uh oh.'
Me: 'Oh. Shit.'

As it turns out, this rocket is much heavier than the others we launched, and it seems to have weighed down the little metal launching stick as it took off, meaning that what was maybe once a 5-degree angle has now turned into a 35-degree angle. It's almost surreal to watch, as the rocket, with rugged (and sharp) plastic tip crosses the entire park at roughly head level, headed for a basketball game on the other side. It must be about 400 yards to the basketball court, so they aren't going to hear a word I shout - so I just get to sit and watch this all in slow motion and hope that no-one gets impaled. To make matters worse, the parachute has decided not to deploy and help us out. It's basically a missile at this point.

From the basketball court: 'HEADS!!!'
Me: 'We better start running.'
Kid: 'Yeah!'

Looking up, I see ten ball-players flat on the pavement and a basketball rolling slowly along, somewhere in the center of the court. It's a long walk to the basketball court. Long walk. With twenty eyes wondering why you might have almost put them out. Long ass walk. Looks like most of the players are kids. Looks like their parents are there too. Awesome. I cling to my 5-year old for support, hoping that if I look like I'm playing the ignorant part of 'fun dad' instead of 'vengeful negligent jerk' that I won't be stoned to death. After some awkward apologies and small talk, we retrieve the rocket from the other side of the court (it had apparently hit a fence and finally fallen). It was still in one piece, still with both shuttles attached too - they never deployed.

Kid: 'We can go and launch it again an-'
Me: 'Hey, [name-of-kid], how would you like to have a fish tank?'
Kid (jumping up and down): 'Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!'
Me: 'Let's go to the pet store. . .'

For sale: One tried and true rocket with two shuttles. Smells vaguely of sulfur. $3

New song

So I made this new song. It's a parody of Colbie Caillat's 'Bubbly' - and because the original was so damn cheerful, mine has a more macabre demeanor to it. You can click it over on the right hand side there if you'd like to listen to it. Comments always appreciated :).

Cheers,

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. . .