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Lumpers, Splitters, and Dippers at Brumfield cafeteria
I ate lunch with three ten year old boys yesterday. For fun. If you have not done such a thing in a while I have reassuring news: they haven’t changed. Fourth grade boys probably haven't changed since the Neolithic era.
Wednesday, my weekly lunch date at Brumfield School cafeteria, is chicken day. It is always chicken, and the kids in the lunch line are tired of my acting shocked every time they answer my question: “What’s for lunch?” Fourth graders disapprove of sardonic humor.
The chicken takes different shapes, though, for nutritional variety. It is usually nuggets. But sometimes it is fingers, and one time it was this amazing drumstick-shaped thing with no bone inside. They didn’t have that in the 70s, when I last ate off elementary lunch trays.
Due to the popularity of Brumfield cuisine, me and my son and two scholars of his choice get special status and sit in the overflow table by the windows. Since this is also the “you’re in trouble” isolation table we often get red-eyed rebels sitting with us, and no doubt my three lunch-mates are getting elementary street ‘cred’ every week.
As I sit across from my pre-teen Hell’s Angels I note they fall into three categories. There is the lumper: he pulls apart the chicken and roll and puts them atop the potatoes and gravy and happily sporks it all into his mouth. Then there is the splitter: he takes a bite from each item in their turn and never lets them touch. And then there is my son the dipper: who applies ketchup to his potatoes and dunks. None of them approves of each other’s gustatory style.
The boys rarely speak to me unless they are all speaking to me at once. They use an argot of Pokemon, game console, and potential school closings involving weather disasters or alien invasion. They turn their eyelids inside out and hold their breath until they are crimson. Their common language is explosion noises, impact noises, distress noises, falling noises, and body noises.
I was recently horrified to learn that one of the boys bribed my son with an extra snack for the right to permanent status at our Wednesday meetings. Horrified, but also intrigued: I figure I’m at the outer edge of the time that my son and his friends will allow me to hang out with them. Now that I know my son has his price, I figure I can buy my way to Wednesday lunches at least until Middle School if I play my Twinkies right.
That was cute! So you mean my fourth-grader who wears his meals around his mouth isn't abnormal?
Posted by B_Vineeta_Ribeiro
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Very cute! But I'm suddenly suspicious, because I recently received an urgent request for Little Debbies, and they seem to be disappearing fast.
Mine's the splitter- we call it variety! (snicker)
Posted by B_Elizabeth_Tierney
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