Things that I just don't get :Lunch Lady Edition

When my youngest started Kindergarten last year I was looking for a way to make a little more money and not sit around all day (even though sometimes I really wish I could sit around all day).  I ended up becoming a lunch lady.  The money sucks but the hours are perfect, when the kids don't have school I don't work.  Plus I get to listen to the manager at my night job say "Do you kids want your sloppy joes extra sloppy!" (Really the way he says it makes me almost want to go to work everyday, almost).  However, in the last year and a half of working at my kid's school there are some things I just don't get.

1) Since when have kids been ALLOWED to be so damn picky?
     Back when I was in elementary school and you wanted to buy lunch you got one choice.  If you didn't like it tough luck, make sure your mom packs you a PB+J.  Now we have fifty choices that these kids get every day.  There is always the hot lunch, then several alternates such as PB+J (what's your mom is to lazy to make it herself?), bagels, cereal, salad, etc.  But even that isn't good enough for these little gourmets.  No, they come through the hot lunch line and want to "customize" their order.  Nothing like 100 kids shouting different things at you.  "I don't want cheese on my nachos, I want my pasta with butter instead of sauce, I don't want crust on my sandwich".  What the hell, this is not BK where you can "have it your way", this is school lunch.  Back in my day if you asked for anything different then what was served you got smacked by the lunch lady and sent on your way, never to do that again.

2) Total Grossness
     Today this little boy was eating his Frosted Flakes.  He calls me over and says "Look what I did."  So I go over and he poured chocolate milk into his cereal but then added his cheese cubes in too and mixed it all up.  I am gagging just writing about it now.  It looked sooooo gross.  I understand that kids are supposed to be creative, but this was just yuck!  I see things like this every day.  I feel bad for the poor custodian who has to clean up after that stuff.  I would be puking in the bathroom everyday.

3) Overachieving Parents
     Kids today are growing up much faster than when we were young.  Kids are cruel and it starts in Kindergarten.  What doesn't help these kids is the over achieving parents whose goal in life is to have their kids be beat up on the playground.  I do believe that most think they are just making their kids lives "perfect" but all they are doing is putting a big bull's eye on their kids for bullies.  Case in point, Bento Boxes!!!  You would be better off sending your kid into school with a kick me sign on their back.  These things remind me of the girl when I was in school that came in with each thing she has individually wrapped perfectly in foil.  There would be one strawberry, one celery stick, one cookie, all wrapped perfectly.  My friends and I still laugh about that to this day (Sorry SW, we still love you, but it's the truth).  Kids want a lunch box, one with their favorite character on, one that is like the other kids, because in school, being the one that is different makes you the one that is a target.  Ditch the bento buy the Scooby Doo.


I have about a million more, but they will have to wait.  I have to go and make some PB+J's for my own kids so I will not be on the Underachieving Parents list.