I am now in my 28th year of teaching....all but 3 of those years have been in middle school. Yes, Virginia, it takes a special kind of crazy to teach this age group. After a while you begin to wonder if perhaps the inmates are running the asylum.
Every year something bizarre will happen and every year I will hear myself utter those Infamous Teacher Words declaring: "In all my years of teaching, I've never....." H-E-L-L-OOOOOOOO!!! You'd think I'd know better than to say that.
During the early years - when my grip on sanity was still rather strong - I sat in the school cafeteria and watched as one of my darlings skillfully stuffed baked beans up his left nostril. Before I could reach his seat to explain the finer points of table manners, Little Johnny became a machine gunner and his unfortunate target sat directly across the table.
This is just one of many reasons the teacher lobby pushed for duty free lunch. Another reason is known as the School Cafeteria Diet....not to be confused with the South Beach Diet, Weight Watchers, or Jenny Craig.
The real fear among school systems nationwide was that there would be an enormous teacher shortage due, not to the retirement of the Baby Boomers mind you, but to teachers losing so much weight on the School Cafeteria Diet that they simply disappeared.
More exciting cafeteria stories to come....be warned;-)