Kids breakfast and a changing world

Between writing and serious family obligations I don’t get out much.

The other day I had a doctor’s appointment. A five hour appointment. The instructions said bring a lunch ( a fatty lunch so I got a cookie to go with the sandwich). It’s 8:00 in the morning and I stop at the local Subway sandwich shop. There’s a line out the door of high school kids. Many were eating their sandwiches at the tables in the shop.

What struck me was, less than half of them had backpacks and the backpacks were not heavily loaded with books. They were getting sandwiches not the breakfast specials or flat bread wraps. They were mostly girls and they were not over weight.

The lack of backpacks stood out because schools today don’t have lockers. When I went to school you got issued a locker and hopefully it was an older locker that could hold all your books and your jacket. Even with a locker I had to haul two or three books home each night to do reading in or home work from and I wasn’t the greatest homework doer.

A sandwich for breakfast is better than an “Egg McMuffin” with grease soaked potatoes but as a school kid I ate a lot of cold cereal for breakfast (chocolate coated corn and sugar bombs or multicolored corn and sugar bombs). I also cooked a lot of scrambled eggs for by brothers and sister. I could cook a skillet of scrambled eggs at one time and feed everyone. Everyone wanted fired eggs but that meant cooking an egg or two at a time while everyone complained about how long it took to cook the food. You either got scrambled or cooked them yourself, and only after I was through cooking the scrambled eggs. After one or two times cooking their own eggs they went back to eating scrambled eggs and complaining. Amazing how lazy people are in the morning. Sometimes when things were good we got cheese or peppers or chorizo thrown into the scrambled eggs. Eggs were a couple of pennies each back then and are only fourteen to fifteen cents each today. How can kids afford six to seven dollars for breakfast? That’s almost as much as a cheap breakfast in a sit down place. I can’t afford to buy a Subway sandwich every day.

It was surprising to me that it was mostly girls in the line at Subway shop and they were not massively over weight. I figure the guys and overweight girls were over at the fast food places.

OK, how do I work this into the next story. The story is set in 1880’s so the schools girls are dressed in uniforms. They have rich parents or they would be working in the factories so they can afford to eat in a cafe. It’s a French style cafe so they would be getting coffee and a croissant. Alternately trying to look grown up and talking like little girls.

Write on, draw on.   Professor Voltage