Lunch Lady

Volume XII
Issue 7
July 2009

QuestionLady is written and played by SL Stukey, herself an Obscure Celebrity of a sort. It is likely that somewhere, sometime, you have read something she has written, especially if you live in the Midwestern United States. She has been writing promotional material, instruction manuals, and other such everyday literature for many years (she'd say how many, if she could remember what year she started, it was 1989, or maybe 1991). She always thought she'd be a real writer someday, but she's not holding her breath anymore.

She can be contacted at:

Lunch Lady

This month QuestionLady was supposed to interview Career Woman, but she called and complained of a business trip, so QuestionLady tried to make an appointment with Bad Influence, but he had taken offense to her interview with Damn Nuisance, and refused to speak to her. (Apparently he felt that QuestionLady should have interviewed him before she interviewed Bad Influence.)

QuestionLady made a quick search of her Rolodex, looking for an Obscure Celebrity who wasn’t on a business trip, on vacation, or mad at her. Finally, she was able to get in touch with Lunch Lady.

QuestionLady found Lunch Lady in the aging kitchen of a major high school. Lunch Lady, dressed in the regulation Lunch Lady polyester uniform and hairnet, sitting on a stool at one of the stainless steel prep tables with an array of ice cream scoop serving utensils of various sizes laid out before her. The rest of the kitchen was deserted. Of course, it was Saturday -- QuestionLady wouldn’t dream of tackling a Lunch Lady on a regular school day. QuestionLady still remembers the formidable presence of the Lunch Ladies at her own high school.

QuestionLady: Thank you for agreeing to an interview on such short notice, especially since school has gotten into full swing.
Lunch Lady (sighs): Oh, it’s not like the old days; I’m not busy at all. Sit down and take a load off.

(Lunch Lady waves companionably to another stool at the stainless steel prep table. QuestionLady sits down, uneasily. Old memories die hard, and she is unaccustomed to friendliness from a Lunch Lady.)

QL: The big question is: How do you choose your menus? No offense, but many menu selections are just plain bad.
LL (thoughtfully): Yes, some of our food is not as pleasing to the palate as it might be. But our menus are limited by the need for balanced nutrition, our budget, and the use of government surplus foods. (slight pause) Besides, you try using 3 tons of surplus cheese and 30 cases of canned whole chickens!

QL: Hmm, I’d never thought of it that way. So how do you use 3 tons of surplus cheese?
LL: Our primary concern is, of course, good nutrition; to serve food that is nutritionally complete, and attractively presented.

QL: Attractively presented? I may buy the nutritional angle, or at least that you are trying for good nutrition, but attractively presented?! I don’t think so. Scoops of food, no matter how nutritious, always remind me of a penal colony on Mars approach to dining.
LL: We do serve over a thousand meals a lunch hour. The scoops make sure that plentiful, uniform servings are provided for each child and adult. I must admit a certain amount of institutional flavor creeps in. Or at least it used to…

(Lunch Lady breaks off and tears form in her eyes.)

QL: Used to?
LL (teary): Yes, used to. We’re being phased out. No one wants a nutritious hot lunch anymore.

QL: Phased out? How can schools phase out feeding students at lunch?
LL: Oh, they still get fed, after a fashion, but by corporations, not by Lunch Ladies. Just look.

(Lunch Lady waves an ice cream scoop serving utensil at the swinging doors to the dining area of the cafeteria. QuestionLady peeks through the portholes in the swinging doors. Around the perimeter of the dining area were minibooths of various fast food restaurants, a miniature mall food court, if you will. On this day they were silent, empty, waiting for the eager throngs of students to arrive at Monday lunch.)

LL: Pizza, hamburgers, egg rolls, Taco Bell… (Lunch Lady chokes back a sob.) What more did they want? We served hamburgers. We served pizza. We served giant bean burritos. But they had to have the brand names! They would dump their trays of half eaten burritos; they scorned my cheeseburgers, made according to the highest nutritional principles. But this, this, junk food, they eat every scrap and buy more. They don’t leave anything but the wrapper. (pause) And sometimes not even that.

QL: How did the fast food places get past the principal?
LL: Oh, it was partly the fault of us Lunch Ladies. Or maybe not us, but nutritionists in general. First there was the Basic 7, then the Basic 4, now something called a Food Pyramid. People got to thinking that Lunch Ladies didn’t really know about good nutrition. (Lunch Lady sighs.) So when the fast food places joined forces with student demand, and offered incentives, and the promise of a more satisfied student body, no principal could stand in their way. (Lunch Lady wipes her tears with an institutional dishtowel, then suddenly bursts out weeping in earnest.) All I ever wanted to do was bring good nutrition to children! (Lunch Lady continues weeping. QuestionLady tries to comfort her.)

QL: You’ve done a fine job over the years. I must admit that Lunch Ladies have benefited me. My family is from the gravy as a beverage/leave no vegetable unsauced school of cooking, and Lunch Ladies introduced me to plain vegetables. Which I enjoy, especially now that I don’t eat canned government surplus vegetables.

(Lunch Lady grabs QuestionLady’s arm in a companionable way.)

LL: Yes, yes, that’s all I wanted, was to show children that food is good, and good for you.

QL: And I do have to admit I always liked the sloppy joes. And even the breaded mystery meat patties—they were weird, but oddly tasty, not that I’d ever eat them at home.

(Lunch Lady hops up eagerly.)

LL: I can give you the recipe for the sloppy joes; I have it here somewhere.

(Lunch Lady opens up a giant notebook of Lunch Lady recipes.)

QL (hastily): No, no, that’s ok, I enjoyed the sloppy joes, but I’ll never make them at home.
LL (disappointed): Oh.

(QuestionLady sees the look of dejection, and figures, what can it hurt?)

QL: Oh, what the heck, give me the recipe. I may make them some cold winter night.

(Lunch Lady joyfully copies out the recipe onto a paper napkin from the McDonalds booth and gives it to QuestionLady.)

QL: Thank you for the recipe, and good luck with the future of Lunch Ladies.

(Lunch Lady sits back down at the stainless steel prep table and QuestionLady heads back to her Globe-Guardian office. As she passes the Principal’s Office she sees an array of soft drink and snack food vending machines placed along the hallway. QuestionLady remembers her own high school. She remembers the lone Coke and lone Pepsi machine placed in the student commons area, inaccessible, locked behind an iron gate except for a scant half hour after classes from 3 to 3:30. She remembers sneaking away at lunch to grab a hamburger at Charlie’s, a now defunct local burger joint. She wonders if it was better to have fun sneaking fast food, or to have it as a matter of course. QuestionLady doesn’t know, but she sits down at her desk in her Globe-Guardian office, and pours herself a slug of Dr. Pepper. Either way, it doesn’t matter to her now, she can have all the Dr. Pepper she wants. QuestionLady makes a toast to Lunch Lady.)

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