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| Photo attribution: Creative Commons License from Equalization Schools; Rebekah Dobrasko |
A version of this article appeared in the September/October issue of Edible Seattle Magazine where I recently got the DREAM JOB of writing a food humor column every month on the back page called "Back of the House"
Miracle Whip is Satan’s sandwich spread.
I know this
because on one of only two occasions that I forgot my school lunch, I
ate half of Rachel Finkelstein’s tuna fish sandwich. It took a few bites
to confirm, but yes, it was undeniable: I was eating tuna laced with
the devil’s condiment. I spat out the filth and committed myself to
remembering my lunch each and every day.
Forget for a
moment the school lunches you see kids with now, packaged in fancy
coolers and insulated lunch boxes with mini ice packs, sub compartments,
and happy meal-ish toys. In the 70s, you ate locker-hot tuna sandwiches
in greasy paper bags, pb & j’s, or you ate nothing.
Nearly as
important as what your lunch was, was what your lunch came in. A brown
paper bag, folded over twice at the top was my typical attaché. Crucial
to the paper bag aesthetic was the tell-tale jelly stain that seeped
through its ineffectual plastic baggie before I could even get off the
bus. Eventually, peer pressure forced me to beg for a lunch box and I
ran with a lemon yellow Partridge Family model. In my mind’s nose I can
still smell the inside of my lunch box: a curious mix of wet metal and
peanuty tuna. I loved my Partridge Family lunch box until one day Rachel
Finkelstein came to school with a shiny new Welcome Back Kotter lunch
box. I could have killed for that lunch box.
I hated Rachel Finkelstein and her stupid lunch box.
What you
brought for lunch spoke volumes about who you were and carved your place
in the elementary school hierarchy. The Crips brought badass contraband
like Ho-Hos or Ding Dongs and tried to sell it at a steep markup. The
Bloods bullied you until you shared yours for free. The Hippiekids had
to chew through bread so hearty they were still masticating it right
through 6th period. The Buyers never brought their own lunch and were
waiting in the lunch line so long that I was done by the time they sat
down. I never got to know the Buyers, because I was a Bringer and we
didn’t associate with one another. There were even subsections of the
Bringers: those that brought the same thing for lunch for 10 years and
those who were more adventurous. A third group, consisting of just
Rachel Finkelstein, was the group that thought Miracle Whip was
delicious.
If you have
kids and you send your precious progeny to school with healthy sack
lunches, I’m the kid you hate because I’m showing your darling
sweetheart the beauty of layering crushed-up Fritos just so on a peanut
butter sandwich followed by the ritualistic, highly sequenced eating of
an Oreo cookie. By the time I’m done with your kid, there will be no
more hummus and sprouts, no more apple wedges, nary a carrot stick.
There will be hot tears and whining demands and uneaten hummus.
One day,
perhaps it was a Friday—I can’t remember—oh yeah, now I do—it was Friday
September 23, 1979 around 11:46 am; a cold sweat was running down my
little back because I remembered that my drippy sack lunch was still
sitting on the green vinyl bus seat, lonely, without me. A deep, sad
hunger rumbled from my stomach. I would need to go get in line with the
Buyers. I was so clearly a Bringer I didn’t know where to stand, how to
get a tray, or what to say to the lunch ladies. While waiting in line, I
tried to work out what I’d ask for, but I felt so much pressure and
kids were laughing and cavorting and grabbing for hot pizza and
applesauce and rolls and butter pats and Oh. My. God. Where was the
peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Where was the locker-hot tuna
sandwich? I panicked and
grabbed blindly at a sloppy joe and some ghastly colored jello with
chunks of unidentifiable fruit. I walked with my tray back to the table
and glumly set it down, scanning for a Crip I could barter with.
Drinks were a
whole other ball of wax. Even the Bringers had to buy their beverages.
They came in 3 flavors: chocolate milk (10 cents), whole milk (9 cents),
skim milk (8 cents). It was of utmost importance to shake the little
cardboard box of milk before purchase, no matter the flavor, to make
sure that it wasn’t completely frozen.
The day the chocolate milk price rose to 11 cents was a very dark day in my elementary school’s history. We nearly rioted. Inflated milk prices brought together the Crips, Bloods, Buyers, Bringers, and Hippiekids for one beautiful, fleeting moment. Then Rachel brought out her sandwich with Miracle Whip and we all scattered like roaches back into the safety of our clans.
*The name "Rachel Finkelstein" is entirely made-up to protect the guilty.
