Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-09-03 - 8:55 p.m.

School Plans

(How did The Talk go?

Well enough - I guess. Well enough that I didn't update for a few days 'cause I was busy, anyway. I dunno.

Sometimes I just give up on the whole man-woman thing anyway. Marriages should be for the purpose of creating children, and they should be arranged by the parents, because that way it's not YOUR fault you married a jerk. After the kids are born, you should retire to separate parts of the compound to live your lives, and simply visit each other's bedchambers occasionally. Men and women are probably not compatible beyond that point.

Okay, you could maybe go to the movies sometimes and stuff.* But that's it.)

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School starts for the girls tomorrow. Older child starts middle school. She's been getting organized, including going through the school lunch menus and the great variety of food choices available besides the standard cafeteria meal. We've been talking about making healthy food choices and not getting into the habit of daily soda pop or fruit roll-ups or that sort of thing. So she just sat down and worked out the week's food plan. Then she informed me that tomorrow's lunch purchase would be four dollars and seventy-five cents.

Oh, I don't THINK so.

I'm afraid I'm going to HATE middle school.

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I remember having a cafeteria in the corporation where I worked. It was company-subsidized and quite affordable, and although we all complained, we all ate there and the food was quite edible.

Someone there had a bright idea once; they decided to offer a lobster entree one day for around eight dollars. In one way, it made sense - who wouldn't jump at the chance to eat a lobster dinner for eight dollars? On the other hand, what were they THINKING? Who goes to the cafeteria prepared to spend eight dollars on lunch? Who wants to eat a lobster dinner in a half-hour off a plastic tray?

I worked swing shift, and on the swing shift dinner break they had hundreds of leftover lobster dinners. The swing shift manager offered an all-you-can-eat lobster feast for the eight dollars just to get rid of it. So I trooped down with all the people who worked for me and we ate ourselves just about sick on lobster tails.

They didn't do the lobster thing again. Unless that's what they're having at the middle school tomorrow. Five bucks for a kid's school lunch. I don't THINK so.

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The girls' father (make sign of cross, spit over shoulder) has been bugging them about when they are going shopping for school clothes. I don't do that before school starts. It just doesn't make sense.

It's still summer here. The girls will start school in shorts and t-shirts and sandals that they've worn since last spring. I'm not buying more summer stuff in September; it doesn't make sense. In a month or so, when the stores have quieted down and the fall stuff is all in, we'll go buy them the things they need. For now, it's just pencils and erasers and binder paper (and I had to pay for the school planner and the yearbook and the school photos and the gym outfit, and then there's the new and significant budget item of Lobster Lunches.)

But he keeps asking them. "So - did Mom take you shopping for all your new school clothes yet?" It makes them anxious, and then they ask me. They feel like they might be missing something. I've never done it that way and I'm not starting now. It's stupid. I think Dad is just worried about where the hell I spend the child support the court makes him send.

Lobster, Dad-o. I spend it on lobster, and wild living for myself, and I send your children to school in raggy old t-shirts that say "My Daddy Never Sends Any Money."

Oh, I don't THINK so.

I'm cross today, aren't I? After such a nice weekend, too. Maybe I have school anxiety.

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(*Of course, you know he's going to want to see Planet of the Apes and you're going to want to see Captain Corelli's Mandolin...)

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