The other morning when we arrived late again for school drop-off and my partner, Bill and I were lining up at the tuckshop to put in a lunch order for Lauca, the 7 year old, and I couldn’t help but notice that the dad in front of us in the queue was pretty much off his face:
Me (whispering to Bill): Just a little bit stoned.
Bill (whispering to me): No judgement here, even he got his kid to school earlier than we did.
blue milk 
You put in the lunch order? My kids put theirs in a basket in the classroom and it is an honour to be chosen to take the basket to the canteen.
Oh Mindy, but we don’t get there in time for her to put her order in with the classroom order.
Basket? Canteen? Classroom order? Please, tell us Americans more. I am fascinated by how lunch works in other countries.
o-O so you are also stopping off at the office to sign her in? I do have the advantage of throwing mine out the door and yelling at them to run for the bus so I have extra time to get ready though.
Hi Elita
At my kids school they have a canteen which is basically a little shop open at morning tea and lunchtime where they can go to the counter and purchase food, drinks and snacks if they have brought their money in. It isn’t included in their fees, which for public schools (open to just about anyone who wants to go), are often voluntary. You can also put in a lunch order where you write on a paper bag what you want from the list provided by the canteen, put your money in and send it to the canteen in a classroom basket with all the other kids’ orders. I think it is designed to make it easier for the little kids so they don’t forget to buy their lunch or lose their money or eat crisps for lunch instead of a sandwich. At highschool we put our own orders in at the canteen or just lined up to buy food.
Mostly my kids take their own packed lunch and lunch orders and money for the canteen are treats. Unless I’ve forgotten to buy bread, then it’s a scramble for change to pay for their lunch orders.
We live in New Zealand in a pretty high soci-economic area. With our child’s school they either bring packed lunch from home or sign up with a web-based lunch supply business. The way it works, apparently as we haven’t used it, is that you have until 8.30am each morning to place an online order and it will be delivered. There’s some great stuff on the menu but it is pretty pricey.
Elita – our tuckshop is a small kitchen on-site at the school and run by parents and semi-attached to the school’s edible garden. They cook home-made food and are open two days a week where you can order lunch and/or morning tea for your kid from the tuckshop. You put the order in in the morning and the food is delivered to their classrooms in time for their meal breaks. Some lovely things on the menu including sushi and salads and veggie muffins. There are fairly strict rules now where I live about how much junk food is allowed on a school menu.
I’m astonished at the healthy foods school canteens offer now. When I was in primary school in the late 80s/early 90s and then high school in 90s, there was a delightful amount of delicious crap you could buy, all of which probably contributed to total gluten-filled blood sugar collapse post-lunch in retrospect. but man did those sausage rolls, party pies, chippies and paddle pops taste goooood.
Hendo, I know! I had mince pies twice a week throughout primary school. I still love them! I never got the idea of the marmite and chip sandwiches though…
I feel as though we’re living parallel lives. I’m definitely “that” parent when it comes to tardiness.
I love Bill.
My son’s school offers free breakfast. Kids wander in to the classroom for about 20 minutes after school nominally starts, from having breakfast. But there’s still the gauntlet of signing in at the office if we’re late. It MORTIFIES my seven-year-old so he makes sure we’re on time – but he doesn’t have a younger sibling to slow things down.
Bill is awesome 🙂 Canteen lunch was always one of my favourites when I was in primary school.
I’m imagining the stoned guy putting in a lunch order for five doughnuts, three pasties and seven bags of chips.