Thursday, November 15, 2007

Day 15 Bless This Day

Today was Turkey and Dressing Day in schools all across the country (well in two states that I know of anyway). At the school I work at a big deal is made over this meal. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and all the preschool siblings and cousins are encouraged to come eat a feast with their school age family members. Each person must send a form back to the school with money and names of those who will be attending so the cafeteria ladies can prepare plenty. On a normal day our cafeteria feeds 243 children and about 25 adults. Today they fed about 200 extra people.
Tables and chairs were set up in the gym by the fifth grade classes, who also served as helpers with trays for parents with small children. Other duties included busing tables, emptying trash cans, and learning that there is a lot of work involved in feeding a crowd. But it got them out of math, reading, science and language arts. I'm sure they thought it was a good trade off.
"What did you do during all this madness?" you ask. I worked the cash register at the book fair. Seems with some ingenious scheduling the Book Fair coincided with this Thanksgiving Feast. So from 10:30 to 1:00 I sat at the cash register. Sounds easy enough, but I found out that to actually have to punch the price in wasn't as easy as it might sound. I'm used to running the old fashioned calculator that requires that a decimal be put in -- not so with this cash register and where was that scanner that all retailers now use?? You can imagine the problem. I finally was able to find the rhythm and took in over $1,000. It could have been more than that I wasn't in charge of counting (and here I add, "Thank you Lord.")
But what about the turkey lunch -- Did you get any? Not to worry. I ate my lunch at 10:15. I had not taken time to eat breakfast and my tummy was growling just as the cafeteria sent boxed lunches for the teachers to the workroom. I thought, "Why not?" Picked up my box, a hot roll, cranberry sauce (the good kind -sliced from a can) and small square of pumpkin pie and ate while visiting with a fellow teacher. OK food plus good visit with a good friend equals a good day not matter what else happens.
I had a good day.

1 comment:

Carrie said...

The Thanksgiving meal is always my favorite. It's the one time of the year I'll definitely head to the cafeteria.

Wanna come run the register at my book fair? :D