DearScotty

While catching up on season 2 of Prison Break, I’m rudely interrupted by the large woman who I’ve yet to learn what her position is. I take my headphones off and give one of those infamous Japanese, “Ehhh??”s to her. She gives her best impression of a starving Ethiopian that you see on late night TV eating flour meal that costs 9 cents a day. I know what this means; I have to eat food prepared by the school’s “Underachiever.” I don’t know how I became the guinea pig but I find myself these days trying food that has been sneezed, coughed, and drooled on by the special student. Don’t get me wrong, the girl is a sweetheart, I just don’t want to be eating her home-eck homework. I’ve already had bizarre flavorless miso soup, some strange pickled potato thing that they kept calling cognac, and some tomatoes marinated in sugar water. I am told that I will get to try food later, that this was just the warning.

It’s around 11 and the student comes to get me. At this moment I don’t know who has it worse, T-bag who has just ripped his own hand off so he could escape the police, or me, who could potentially be walking into a deathtrap. I lead the way into the main office but find out that the Iron Chef showdown isn’t taking place here. Now I’m scared. The girl takes me to an abandoned section of the building and we go up the stairs and head down a long hall decorated with photos of my town during it’s glory days back in the 40’s when it used to be a POW camp. Apparently we’re headed to some lab and I start to imagine the horrors behind the oncoming doors. I’m not going to enter and find a waterfall of chocolate or wild gummy mushrooms growing from edible grass. There aren’t going to be Ooompa Loompas singing as they prune the lollipop trees. I’m expecting to find kids in wheel chairs with dough all over their faces from flour slowly mixing with slobber. One kid is bound to be running around with a butcher knife as the other kids cheer on, slapping their closed fists in glee.

The special girl and I open the doors and waiting inside are the large woman, a special kid almost about to fall out of his wheelchair and his caretaker. The scene isn’t horrific as I imagined, but the place is still a dump. It doesn’t appear that it’s been used since the glory days of enslaving American soldiers and the toaster oven appears to be a first of it’s kind. The glass door to the toaster is fogged up with rust and I learn of its contents as I sit down. We’re having potatoes-au-grautin. Two large bowls are brought to the table and I am served my portion. The special girl apparently gets her own bowl that’ll probably feed five people. Surprisingly, it’s not that bad, and I finish my own serving. I ask for more and the obese teacher takes the bowl away from the “underachiever” and attempts to put more into my dish. I swallow a dry heave and say, “Oh, I’m fine thank you.” She then takes the spoon in midair and pulls it towards her own bowl and refills for herself. Disgusted, I ask for something to drink and I get a class of apple sauce. I pound down the sauce, try to ignore the caretaker who’s cutting the potato dish with scissors and feeding it to the wheelchair bound student, and say that I have to get prepared for class. I returned to my desk, flip Prison Break on and stare and my hand wondering, who really needs two hands?

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 2nd, 2006 at 8:11 pm and is filed under about my day, food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.