ArcaMax

Sometimes, I pretend to be a lunch lady.

I volunteer for shifts helping out at my boys' elementary school, work that entails helping the other lunchroom workers get set up for the rush, dishing out the food when the kids get there, and then helping restock the fresh fruit and veggies before I take off my apron and gloves and sit down next to my boys in the lunchroom while they eat.

The lunchroom supervisor, the chief of the kitchen and serving area, is tiny with a powerful, smoke-tinged voice. She's a fierce woman who doesn't just like everything "just so" -- she demands it. She'll snap at any of the parents who hand out two baskets of nuggets to kids who ask for "doubles" of the entree.

"No," comes the sharp redirection as she shows you the larger baskets.

When we're helping, we also need to make sure we put enough room between the salads so that the kids (or, actually, the teachers) can grab them without spilling. We always refill the fruit from behind instead of from the front, to keep it fresher. If too many kids start to line up at the register, it's time to hold off to let the cashier catch up. It's all very specific.

"You gotta wait right there," she'll growl as she rushes past to drop off another tray of French toast sticks -- breakfast for lunch day can get crazy.

Some of the parents seem put off by the supervisor's harsh demeanor, rolling their eyes or looking shocked at her bluntness. But I love the woman. Clear expectations, delivered confidently, for easily understandable reasons: She's a dream boss.

She doesn't have time to perform a complicated corporate dance with her words, and she doesn't appear inclined to wrap her instructions in soft social padding.

"Um, so, like, you are doing so great right now, but can you please move the fruit up and stock the new ones from the back? Or you don't have to, if you don't want! Either way is cool beans with me!"

Nope.

"Wrong," she'll say, showing you where to wash your hands before you put the gloves on.

She does a good impression of a dictator but occasionally slips up and reveals her softer side, the qualities that make her at home in an elementary school cafeteria.

"That's all you're going to eat?" she'll bark at a kid who only has strawberries on her plate. "Come on. Do you want a turkey sandwich?"

I also like working the lunch shift because it keeps me up to date with what's normal childhood behavior these days.

"Whose mom are you?" a girl will often saucily demand. Once, a girl asked if I was my son's grandmother. It was the gray hair, I know, and she was just a kindergartner, but still.

"No," I ground out from behind a smile. "I'm his mother."

When I was that young, I was terrified of adults. I would never have dreamt of questioning one on any topic. But kids now aren't scared of grown-ups -- the girls especially. They believe you're there to serve them, to make their lives easier. Usually, they're right.

"Don't give me that burned one," one of the boys might say, pointing at a piece of pizza he finds overly browned.

"Yes, sir," I'll say with a salute. They usually don't get the joke.

The sass throws into sharp relief the polite children, the ones who say "please" and "thank you" in cheerful tones.

"God, I hope my kids are like that," I think to myself. If they can't be, at least let them be like the stonily silent ones who seem to think they'll be charged for each word they say.

Once I'm done in the serving area and I go out to the tables, I get to eavesdrop on the conversations the kids have and even participate in some on occasion. The other day, I listened to my son and his third-grade friends talk about the plague. They wanted to know what it was like, who got it. I didn't have my phone, so I just did a lot of fancy guesswork.

"Maybe a third of the time?" I answered uncertainly when they asked how often it was fatal.

They wanted to know if any diseases were fatal 100% of the time. I couldn't think of any, but they were looking at me so expectantly.

"I guess if you got your head cut off, that would always kill you," I stammered.

"But that's not a disease," my son's friend said pointedly.

"You're right," I thought. "But I'm not Siri. I'm a lunch lady."

After my children have thrown away all the protein, fruit and vegetables on their plates and ingested their final carbohydrate, I always feel a little sad saying goodbye to them and leaving.

I get to live in the lunchroom for only so long, both an inhabitant of that world and not, and then I'm gone, taking my bagel and salad with me, until the next time.

"Thanks for helping," the women at the front desk say as I turn in my badge.

"No, thank you," I always say back.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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