There is a lunchbox, that sits in my son’s elementary school entryway.
It has been there for many moons, all snuggled up betwixt the neatly folded sweatshirts, jackets, and lone, left-behind mittens of elementary school kittens.
The lost garb gazes at you as you enter the school, proudly displaying their fancy sports team emblems, and mountain towns visited across their chests, waiting to be claimed.
“Are you my mommy?” They ask of each passerby.
I walk by that bastard lunchbox, time and time again, unwilling to claim it as one of ours. Knowing the truth of its origins. Knowing the depth of my deception.
For inside, I cannot imagine what festers there.
Mold, upon mold, upon mold.
Amoebas.
Planets, probably.
It’s been sitting atop the lost and found pile for over a month, sealed tightly. Sitting there with its shiny stainless steel veneer, all prissy and upper-fucking-class, thinking all this time it was better than the baggie at holding a damn PB & J.
Boy, was it wrong.
So when I enter my son’s school, I see it: He Who Shall Not Be Named, and strut on by. Pretending the glimmer off his annoying stainless steel clasps did not just accost me in the eyes. Pretending I have nothing to do with that dirty little secret.
It reminds me of the Booger Wall.
10 years old — there was a wall between my younger brother’s room and mine. I fancied it the Booger Wall. I placed my squishy, varying colored specimens on said wall with regularity. The wall, conveniently, was closer to his room than mine.
One day, to my great surprise (and also evil, older-sister delight), I came home to find my younger brother, spackling the boogers off the wall under my mom’s orders, crying “I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me!”
I smiled, and walked on with confidence then.
Apparently, I have always been this way.
I have thought about just picking it up, and putting it in the trash. For a split second I thought about bringing it home and just dealing with it. Putting on a mask, grabbing some rubber gloves, and making right of the situation.
But then I forgot.
One time I suggested to my son that he should grab it, as we walked in the school together, both eyeing that little prick. We looked at each other and exchanged a sly glance.
I went to this school as a kid, ate lunches out of my own Care Bear lunchboxes here, exchanged dolls with friends on playgrounds, had favorite teachers, first crushes, field days, and talent shows. Quinton is my last kiddo here. This May he graduates, and we walk out of these halls for the final time, closing something that has held parts of my history and family for years.
But this lunchbox will likely stay.
Forty-something years of history with this building, and this is what we’re leaving behind: one sealed stainless steel lunchbox, contents unknown, yours now, dear Bear Creek.
Consider it our legacy. Give it a few years and that lunchbox will have outlasted entire kindergarten classes.
We look at the lunchbox and then at each other. We keep walking. He is definitely my kid.
To find out more about my offerings and read other writing, please see my website. xxo
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