The Cafeteria Cavalier

Fighting The Man from a young age

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a strong sense of right and wrong, and I’ve always hated being in trouble. Generally, I was a well-behaved youngster, and I prided myself on being an upstanding member of the child community. I was a highly decorated student with many Good Citizen accolades from both Cecil Floyd and Irving Elementary. I did my homework, tried my best, treated others with kindness. What more did these bitches want from me?

That being said, getting in trouble as a kid did not just feel shameful or annoying to me. No. I was outraged, appalled, and unforgiving to those who dared chastise me for something I believed to be frivolous. I once took a Sharpie to a substitute teacher’s face in EVERY YEARBOOK K-3rd grade because she got on to me for humming in class. How dare she treat me like a common playground criminal for lighting up the room with beautiful MUSIC from my flute-like humming? Mrs. Coit,¹ I will never forget what you did. Clearly, I’ve yet to forgive.

This is who Mrs. Coit was getting onto

I always fancied myself a real Henry David Thoreau, a proponent of civil disobedience for a righteous cause and generally, not in favor of stupid, made-up rules. Here are a few stories of righteous indignation from my K-12 days.

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In elementary school, I would frequently lament about the authoritarianism prison system thriving in our cafeteria. In our lunchroom, We the People were subject to cruel and unusual punishments like being separated and sent to The Stage for talking. We had so little time to go through the lunch line and get seated that we were forced into silent complacency during our brief respite from the endless, grueling toil of 3rd grade.

I genuinely remember thinking that people in actual jail had more rights and freedom than we did in the 3rd grade. You can’t fault me for having a poor understanding of the prison system at 8 years old, but I still feel strongly that children should be able to relax, chat, and enjoy their lunch, even if they get a bit restless before recess. Plus, I feel like I can say this after having worked in childcare as an adult.

My one-woman movement for children’s rights was fruitless. My organizing skills were rudimentary to say the least and ended up with me just talking shit to my classmates and any adult who would listen. (They were mostly unsympathetic to my cause.)

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In fifth grade, they invented something at our school called Structured Recess. (Bit of an oxymoron, right?) We got to go play outside but our class was divided into factions and were authorized to play just one game at a time. All rules, no fun. Once while I was at regular recess, I was looking for a jump rope because my friends and I were trying to learn double-dutch for the spring talent show.

It was getting down to the wire with only a few weeks until the program, but we still hadn’t figured out double Dutch whatsoever. This was pre-Youtube and we had limited internet access to teach us such exercises.

One fateful day approaching our much-anticipated performance, there were NO jump ropes to be seen in our recess bag.

Apparently, there had been issues with kids mixing up Structured Recess and Regular Recess equipment, which had led to a lot of frustration on behalf of the teachers. We were FORBIDDEN from using the structured recess equipment at regular recess and vice versa. I didn’t think it was that deep and I didn’t get the big whoop. (Still don’t.)

Resourceful as I am, I asked the teacher on duty for structured recess if we could borrow theirs for regular recess. No one was using the equipment, he gave me permission, and I went on my way to my friends.

That is, until Mrs. Norfalise (who wasn’t even my teacher) called me into the principal’s office. I was confused at first, then defensive. She accused me of going behind her back to get the jump ropes! I was shocked. How could she think I would be so calculating? I was literally 10 years old and desperately needed to learn double Dutch in time for the talent show! I tried my best to defend myself and explain, but she wouldn’t hear me out. Worse, she said she was disappointed in me.

Even today, I find this incredibly stupid. Why would a grown adult think a child had such malicious intent? It was a goddamn jump rope! I hate being in trouble, but I’ll be damned if I don’t at least defend myself. I stand by what I did. It was never that deep.

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In sixth grade, I helped stage a small coup against a group of popular lunchbox-toting 6th grade girls. The reason? The girls who ate school lunch had to wait in line for their food while the packed-lunch girls got first dibs on the best seats in the cafeteria. The result was the school lunch girls getting pushed to the fringes of the lunch table, making it impossible for us all to sit next to each other and, in effect, creating a cafeteria class system based on the status of your lunch box.

After weeks of frustration over not being able to sit together, we decided to take action. Our bold move? We started sitting at our own table. A table with a seat for all! Where you could come as you are — lunchbox or not! We called this The Lunch Table Rebellion.

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I doubt the girls we were “rebelling” against knew about our movement, much less cared. But our little friend group had been obsessed with the Hunger Games and clearly needed a revolutionary outlet. Fight the man.

Here’s what one of my fellow comrades and best friends to this day (shoutout Keaton) had to say about the movement:

“As a middle schooler, it’s worthwhile to do cringe things like TLTR. Best case scenario, your brave acts alter the lunch table hierarchy forever. Worst case scenario, it’s just really really cringe, so cringe that you kind of block it out of your memory for 10 years. But then eventually the memory comes back to you and it’s the funniest thing ever. But lowkey I still hope those girls don’t remember it happened… also now that I’m thinking about it WE might have been the bullies… but still REALLY funny.”

this is real and still exists on instagram

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Later in middle school, I was personally victimized by my math teacher, Mr. Barham. It was relatively early in the school year, and I had evidently not learned the teacher’s preferred formatting for assignments.

To my horror and disgust, one unassuming 6th hour, my homework, with my name censored, was projected onto the Smart Board as an example of a badly done math assignment.

I was outraged. Why was I chosen to be the sacrificial lamb? Did he think I wouldn’t recognize my own handwriting? Sure, the class wouldn’t know whose assignment it was, but I knew. And I was furious.

He never provided an example for how he’d like us to show our work on our homework! The expectations were never clarified! I didn’t know he cared! I never thought I was doing less than adequate work!

To counter this injustice, I submitted the seventh-grade equivalent of a cease and desist to Mr. Barham urging him to never use my homework for this purpose ever again, citing my spotless record, otherwise good grades, and my many accomplishments, which included being published in an independent poetry book for middle schoolers and things of the like.

He never responded to my letter, but I think I got my point across. I was a teacher, I think I would have felt quite bad if I had upset a student enough that she drafted such a defensive letter.

This is how I remember Mr. Barham looking like

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Sophomore year of high school, I was on the school magazine where I wrote a scathing exposé on a newly adopted closed-cafeteria policy, titled Lunchroom Lockdown. Reading my full investigative report, you may be able to figure out my particular journalistic angle. I was partial to some pretty incendiary language.

Now 10 years removed, I can confess my bias — I thought the locked lunchroom policy was bullshit. We had a beautiful high school with large windows, open spaces, outdoor seating and yet we were forbidden from roaming free. My friend Howard put it perfectly at the time, “We are nearly adults, but are treated like children.” I stand by what I wrote.

Despite being read by approximately 2 students at Joplin High School, people in the community somehow found the article and began commenting on it. I don’t really remember what they were saying or what the controversy was, but I ended up having to interview more school staff to provide more balanced coverage and had to completely remove the photo of us students shackled behind a gate.

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In the process of writing this, I began to remember additional stories of moral outrage so this might require a follow-up. I might also send this to my therapist for context of why I hate feeling like I’m in trouble and tend to have some defensive feelings arise when I make a mistake. I’m working on it.

1. I had a serendipitous run-in with Mrs. Coit about a decade after my childhood experience with her. I was working at a summer day camp in college and we brought our campers to a local museum where she was volunteering. I recognized her immediately, despite not having a record of her face to reference since I Sharpied her out of my yearbooks.

We had our own full staff to manage our students but she was just as bossy, controlling, and hateful as I remembered her! In my adult age, I could tell that she simply did not like children. She would have made a great middle manager of some insurance firm or something. But anyway, I felt quite vindicated that she really was just that evil.