High school is about many things. Throughout the course of a high school career, a student grows from a small and mostly intolerable middle schooler to a larger and slightly more tolerable adult. In the time it takes to do so, a student will make many friends, many choices, many mistakes and many upperclassmen want to graduate as soon as possible.
A notorious and necessary part of every student’s high school experience is the time they spend in Murphy’s Commons, dining on some of the finest food ever to grace the earth. It is safe to say that this experience comes with ups and downs, but the ups and downs can sometimes be difficult to make out in the moment. Having had time to reflect on my time eating lunch in our beautiful cafeteria, I’ve decided to aid the rest of the student body in distinguishing and clarifying Murphy’s greatest meals of all time, as well as his biggest flops.
Close your eyes and picture the following: It has been a long day of classes. You have just received your graded chemistry test and spent some time contemplating whether a high school diploma is really worth the effort. You look up at the clock and it’s 11:37. Murphy’s Commons embraces you with its warm aura and a ray of sunshine illuminates a bag of Doritos just calling your name. It’s walking taco day.
Almost unanimously, the walking taco was deemed by students to be the best that LHS has to offer. The spicy chicken patty received some shouts and popcorn chicken almost entered the conversation, but in the end the unsettling bouncy nature of the small chicken rendered the effort in vain. One student echoed the thoughts of many, saying that the “walking taco should be served every day.”
Now close your eyes again. You are having the best morning of your life. You woke up and you were not tired at all. Your mom cooked you a nice warm breakfast as a surprise and when you got to school and went to chemistry, Jaws started yelling about moles and the class played games the whole period. At 11:37, you are promptly punched in the face by Murphy. You feel a sharp pain in your chest as you walk through the line to get your food and cross your fingers that you are not smelling what you think you are. It is sloppy joe day.
It was a tighter race for which meal would take the title of worst. The bean and cheese burrito and cheesy bread were very close behind the sloppy joe, but a decision had to be made by the student body in the end and they made a safe choice with the worst sandwich on the menu. No additional comments were made about the sloppy joe and its quality, the students electing to let their decision speak for itself. A shocking number of students actually made no decision at all, claiming everything is the worst.
LHS students would pay anywhere from zero to $5 on school lunch, most agreeing that $3 is a good benchmark valuation. My personal favorite opinion was that of a student who said they would pay nine cents for the average meal.
In the end, the issue of school lunch is necessarily divisive, and will remain that way. It is one that has some students admitting that “school lunch isn’t as bad as a lot of people think it is,” and others saying that they “hate Michelle Obama.” One thing is certain, and it is that we owe a lot more thanks to the staff serving up the whole grain goodness day after day. It is part of the high school experience.
