Grey

i would like to make a public apology

i'm sorry to all those kids who somehow failed to recieve their lunchorders at Lonsdale Heights Primary School on days when vicki was the lunch monitor between c.1990 and c.1994.

i think over that time i must have swiped $15 worth of stuff from that lunchbin i helped bring down to the classroom. remember that to a 10-year-old kid, $15 was alot. hence the slight remaining - albeit somewhat flippant - guilt i think.

i would volunteer to bring the bin down from the canteen full of all the lunchorders for that day - claiming that my eagerness was due to my having an order myself.

when i'd collected the bin, walking between the canteen and the classroom i'd glance through the bags looking on the labels to see what was on offer. my selection was always made with consideration taken to the following factors:

a) what the lunchorder contained (did i feel like a pie? donut? sausage roll?)
b) who it was for (if i didnt like them it was a bonus)
c) how much was spent on it

this last factor was a fairly important one - if the lunchorder was for someone i knew was from a low income family didnt get things from the canteen often, like me at the time, and today was just a $3 splurge their mum was treating them with, i'd abort that target.

be informed dear readers, that i never stole from the other poor kids. kids who couldnt wear new sneakers every year either; kids who brought their peanut butter sandwiches in old bread bags too cos it was cheaper; kids also for whom a brand name fruitbox or muesli bar was a real treat - even moreso if it didnt bear a "reduced to clear" sticker.

vicki targeted only the richer, snobby or otherwise bratty kids that got lunchorders every other day. if was a handy co-incidence then that the majority of the kids that made my life hell at that time fell into that category.

so if Luke Zrim had a chocolate donut and a bag of mixed lollies one lunchtime that day Vicki - or rather "Victoria" - was picked to get the lunches, for some reason it never showed up.

'Victoria' would have put the bin down, grabbed 'her' lunchorder (set aside on the top shortly before coming in), and take her seat while the crowd of expectant lunchorder kids swarmed forward and rummaged through it like a bunch of seagulls. By the time all the ruckus had died down - save for someone still out the front saying "where's mine?" - half the ill-gotten food had been eaten and the bag with the owners name on it would be safely in the pocket of my budget Woolworths jeans. any small-change that came with my selection of stolen lunch was also pocketed for a later snack or drink.

and then we'd all eat, all of us uncool kids, and watch the boy or girl that had somehow not gotten their lunch - due to some sort of error up in the canteen it seemed - with little to no sympathy because it was nice to see them in pain for a change.
"In fact wasn't he the guy that punched Victoria in the shoulder at lunchtime yesterday?"
"yes, right before he called her friend a blubbery whale i think it was."

kids can be so cruel.
mehehe.

i wish i was then the way i am now. i think i could have really enjoy school.

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