school lunches...

For the last two years of high school my lunch time was spent between F-Hall and E-Hall. The two coolest halls in the entire school. F-Hall was the English hall. Our favorite teacher Mr. Seibert taught a few doors down from where we ate. And conveniently his class was after lunch on odd period days. E-Hall was the history and social studies hall. Two other favorite teachers Mr. Kobrowski (Kobro for short) and Mr. McGuire (e-Mac for short) taught next to where we ate. Were we supposed to eat in the hallway? No. But we did anyway. We were just too cool for the cafeteria. Common people ate there. People who didn't know how it felt to eat sitting on the floor in the dim light of the hallway. We started eating there for innocent enough reasons. My sophomore year the school remodled the cafeteria and during that time it was about half it's original size. We were allowed to eat anywhere we could find. We found F-Hall. No one really cared what you ate. Unless it looked really weird. But we weren't afraid to ask. That's the best part about eating with your friends, people who care about you. You're not afraid to ask them what the hell that is and they're not afraid to tell you. What you brought it in did matter. If you brought it in a paper bag I would yell at you. As the president of Environmental Club I had an obligation to inform you that fabric lunch bags were far cuter and didn't murder trees. Some people bought lunch. Really the only acceptable things to buy from the school were bento (not actual bento), fries, and cookies. And you had to get an egg role with the bento. The chicken was too questionable. Not quite chicken-looking enough.

Junior year was pretty fabulous. We had the whole hallway to ourselves. Occasionally the vice-principles would remind us that we weren't supposed to eat there. We'd say "ok" and continue eating. Senior year though the juniors moved it. They weren't annoying, in fact many of them were our friends. But this was our hallway. And these people were freshman just two years ago. So we told them they should move and that it was our hallway. They said that they didn't think so. So we just slowly moved the garbage can that seperated our two groups down the hall until they were squished in to the end of the hallway.

The hallway was more than just somewhere to eat lunch. It was a meeting place. if someone said "I looked for you all durning lunch yesterday." You just had to answer "well.. i was in f-hall. like always." It became a place where you knew you had someone to sit with. Someone who you had at least one thing on common with. One of the junior invaders (also a very good friend) wrote in my yearbook that he'd miss all the seniors in f-hall next year. Now he's a senior. So I guess we've passed on our hallway.