This is specifically directed to the Mom, here in my neighbourhood, who religiously packs a healthy, nutritious lunch for her high schooler and just as ardently believes that the kid is getting all the nutrition that he, or she, needs to get through the day.
Alas, Mom! You’re being double crossed!
Dear Mom: Any of these look familiar?
Dear Mom:
The consternation…
My sister and I were out walking the dog the other day – the first really nice morning of Spring; both sunny and mild – when we met a fellow dog walker who was having serious trouble getting her pooch to ‘come’. Pooch was off leash in the woods that separate the high school from the big community park (where they held the National Little League Championships last year!). He was totally oblivious to his mistress’ remonstrations and protestations. What could hold such fascination for a dog?
The investigation…
We joined the dog Mom on her trip up the rough path into the trees to fetch her baby. And found him staring glassy-eyed at something behind a bush… It was a site to make even my eyes glaze over: A pile of apples, in various stages of degradation, and a pile of Granola Bars, still in their wrappers, showing various degrees of weathering – and worrying by dogs. There was so much food hidden back there that the kid could have been deep-sixing it since the start of the school year last fall. What a waste!
No longer cool. If they ever were…
Mom, your kid isn’t eating the Granola Bars or the Apples. Won’t even to offer them for trade to their friends! Who knew Apples and Granola Bars were so wimpy? So shameful? So unthinkable a concept among the ‘cool’ kids these days?
And, worse than that, your kid is either too ashamed, afraid – or whatever – to discuss the matter with you!
The moral to the story…
If you think you are this Mom, think about this… You’re unknowingly spending hundreds of dollars a year on expensive Granola Bars, and bags and bags of Apples that are going straight back into the earth whence their constituents came! All because your kid can’t bear to show his lunch in public! Try confabbing with your kid on Lunch. It might save you a lot of money as well as saving your kid loss of face among his, or her, peers…
Remember, we’re all pulling for you!
~ Maggie J.