Part of the Routine

Sitting at my desk, I lean back to admire the smooth, even curve of my bite in my peanut butter sandwich when Eric walks by on his way to the printer. He points to the yogurt container in my lunch bag and says, "Do you ever wonder why people lick the lids of those things?"

Actually, no, I've never wondered that before. But it's on my mind now.

I suppose it's one of those automatic things that you do without thinking about it because you've always done it without thinking about it. Like closing your eyes when you sneeze, burying your face in fresh-from-the-dryer laundry, watching a scary movie when you get to Aaron's house, or tripping the weird kid in the hallway on the class trip to the water fountain.

I learned a lot about repeatable patterns and routines in school. And not just high school - it goes all the way back to elementary school. That's where we had the communal coat closets and everyone put their coats and boots and backpacks in the same place day after day after day. It's also where we automatically lined up in alphabetical order to go anywhere and everywhere. I always stood behind Michelle Walter and next to John Walker.

We visited the library on Wednesdays, the gym on Tuesdays, and on Fridays we pushed our desks to the sides of the classroom so the other homerooms could come into Miss Lasher's room with their carpet remnants for movies and film strips. On Mondays we went to art and sat in our assigned seats that were ever-so-helpfully numbered, and that left Thursdays for music class where we learned to sing the names of the states in alphabetical order. I wonder if anyone under the age of 30 knows what a film strip is.

At the sounding of the mid-day lunch command, we marched like little soldiers in our orderly lines to the cafeteria. Kids who brought their lunches carried the bright plastic boxes at their sides with one finger on the unreliable plastic latch that caused copious amounts of embarrassment when it would open without warning and spill one poor kid's lunch all over the floor because he didn't have it properly secured. Let that be a lesson.

Line by line, we filed into the cafeteria. With the freedom to sit by our friends, we always sat in the same places next to our friends. Me on the end, Val to my left, Mandy in front of me, Debi next to Mandy. No boys allowed.

Sometimes my dad would bring enormous chocolate chip cookies home from work and mom would cram one into my lunchbox. She'd have to break off a little bit of it to fit it all in, and on those days we all got really excited about dessert. Face it, we were always excited about dessert. And we still are. Sometimes there were Twinkies, other times Little Debbie snack cakes. One universal favorite was pudding. Chocolate Jell-O pudding was a heavenly treat. Not wanting to waste even the smallest taste, we'd break into those cups and immediately lick the lid clean.

Hmmmmm.

Did the dryer just go off?