Cafeteria work

-
The bright spot in my day in Junior high was lunch. The Cafeteria manager had been our neighbor when I was in elementary school and she had babysat me for one of my mothers semesters of school. She told me that they allowed kids to help serve food at lunch time. I forget how, but I was able to be one of those student helpers for eighth and ninth grades. It was a wonderful escape from the teasing and the watching my former friends enjoying themselves while refusing to include me. I felt privileged. And I didn't need my lunch tickets (free lunch program) because I got free meals for working in the cafeteria, so (even though I don't think I was supposed to), I gave my ticket to someone almost everyday (different people), even though I knew it wouldn't change anything. These people who begged me for food, still were not interested in being my friends. But I couldn't let someone go hungry, even if they didn't like me… guess I am weird. Maybe that was enabling them to continue to be mean, or rude, but I wasn't so concerned about that… I figured there was food available and people who would eat it.
MD the manager (different than the MD mentioned earlier), was a sweet lady. She let me have soup from the teachers cafeteria when my newly tightened braces made my teeth too sore to eat the food the kids were being served. She never made me go out to the main eating area after we were done working. I was allowed to stay and help, or watch the ladies clean up after lunch. It was an oasis in the midst of a miserable time of life.
The school had an "adopt a student" day every year. Where a faculty member adopted a child or two and stayed after school to play games and stuff. Every year MD adopted me and one other girl…
That was so cool that she would stay after school with us, even if it was only one day a year…
I am not really sure how I was able to stay working in the cafeteria even though my grades were not passing… in anything (except for Office TA, in 9th grade where I did manage to get an 'A'). But I am thankful for it. I had a safe place to be, a friendly place where I was liked and accepted.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

family trip

-
They wanted a road trip with Mom. So I granted their wish. There was a lot of anxiety involved. I wasn't sure how I would handle doing all they wanted me to do. But I did it, with more grace than I have. God worked amazing miracles. He is so good. It was an amazing week. Filled with favorite places, foods, activities and people. But better than that was the attitudes of my teenagers. They got along with each other, I noticed zero bad attitudes, they weren't greedy or opportunistic. We just had a great time and enjoyed everything.  Thursday on the way to GP, we stopped and saw Crater Lake ❤️, one of my most favorite places. Then we saw some dear to our heart friends. We got in to the Airbnb early enough to make a frozen pizza, and cookies and brownies for the week. Thomas invited a friend over for a couple hours, and Barbara and I shared some crab 😋. To my shock and awe, the cookies and brownies lasted the week with some leftover. Amazing!! Barbara got hé first taste of Anne of
Read more

A new chapter, a new name

-
This may be the post that takes the most time to write.   I am starting it months before it will be posted. But I  need to be careful about what I say,  and the timing of the post,  must be absolutely perfect. I have no idea how many people read my blog posts,  or even why.  I hope you are blessed,  and that God is glorified. Many of you are reading this because I plan to encourage all my facebook friends to read it. I'm am planning on waiting a few days to a week after posting this  before I make a big change to my facebook. You can probably guess, by the title,  that my name is changing.   But what is changing is almost the whole name.   I'm going to keep my middle name,  but first and last are going.   Most of you know by now, divorce has happened, and is finalized. For those who didn't know,  let me say this has been a rough road,  it was a hard choice,  but I believe it was the only one I could make.   More information will be given to those wh
Read more

To feel or not to feel…

-
Somewhere along life's path I managed to shut off most emotion. I don't "feel" much. I remember working at it. I remember, I think, the start of it… My stepfather only hit me the one time. I truly believe it scared him more than it did me. Not sure why, but there was a look on his face… I knew he had scared himself by his actions. I think that scared me more than the fact that he had hit me. He had already assured me he had no intention of going back to jail for me, so what would he do next?? Anyway. After the black eye. My stepfather found more… creative ways to hurt me. He would keep mental stock of what was important to me and "hurt" or destroy those things. I didn't have much in the way of nice things. I had an antique porcelain piggy bank, given to me by a lady in our church (DL, I think @ TCC), a Pegasus lamp, given to me by my grandmother and a few dolls, given to me by my mother's co-worker (I was told they "were not the kind you pla
Read more