Did you live under power lines as a kid, or something?

I had lunch with my girls at their elementary school today.

2nd grade lunch was rather non-eventful as we sat off by ourselves, somewhat away from the general population.

However, kindergarten was more interesting.

So ... what I learned today in kindergarten:

First, the lunch bringers are not allowed to begin eating until the lunch buyers have returned with their feed. The kids don't get a great deal of time for chow, so I found it odd that kids had to sit there with their respective lunch boxes awaiting the kids in the queue. Rachel said that was to make it fair for everybody.

This has long been a pet peeve of mine, the whole public (school) mentality of striving to create fairness, whatever that really is (e.g., everybody gets a medal, there are no losers ... ergo, no winners, everyone gets the same regardless of behavior, etc.). I may be reading too much into it, but it brought back to my mind the rut that public schools can fall into whereby they reward mediocrity.

I wondered ... is it fair that kids have to sit and wait through no fault of their own? Is it fair that they won't have time to finish their meals either? In my mind, it's just a benefit of being a bringer ... you get to start eating when you have the culinary ability.

Of course, it was the time of waiting where I saw kids getting in the most trouble. Without the option of eating, shenanigans rose to the top of the list of things to do.

I don't know. It just seems to me that they are there to eat and they should maximize the time they are there so they can minimize food thrown away.

Second, the kids are being taught the difference between organic and inorganic trash. The big person puts a plastic bin on the table and we "put our organic in there." On the one hand, that seems like a good idea as they put paper products and food in a different container, assuming the destinations are different.

But, the kids really enjoy having fun with pouring their food in there, etc. They realize they're not going to have time to eat all their chow, so they head to the tater tots (instead of saving them for later, as Napoleon might) and throw the other food in the bucket. It seemed to me that the game of organic disposal actually derailed the eating process.

Third, little girls are really cute; little boy are mutants. It's not their fault really, but that's just the way it is. That's the way I see it; that's the way it's gonna be.

I can't tell you how many times these boys would walk by and say, "Hi, Rachel" or "Hi, Sarah" and I'd have to say, "Go eat your lunch, sloogey boy, and quit talking to Rachel/Sarah."

Rachel would say, "His name is X, but you can call him, 'Sloogey Boy.'" Yeah, like anything else ever entered my mind. There's just no reason they need to be conversing with my daughters ... Amen?

Anyway, I see these kids in the lunchroom and I'm wanting to ask each of them, "Did you live under power lines as a kid, or something?"