Only now do I fully appreciate the hilarity of Schwarzenegger’s movie KINDERGARTEN COP.  Five-year-olds are the epitome of pandemonium.

I decided this morning that I wanted to surprise  my daughter by showing up to school to join her for lunch.  Amy contacted the school for me and made arrangements so that I could just show up, grab a pass, and meet Vivian at the cafeteria.  Nothing complicated.  Nothing anxiety-inducing.  This was gonna be great.  That’s all I could think to myself.

I shaved and showered and threw on some nice clothing, and made my way to the kitchen to fix my lunch; a cold bologna and cheese sandwich, a cup of yogurt, a Kool-Aid Blaster pouch (that looks suspiciously like the mylar Capris Sun packaging), and two mint Double-Stuff Oreos…one for each of us (even though there’s a ban on junk-food type stuff at the Lisbon Community School, that’s how I roll.  I’m THAT kind of daddy).  I threw my lunch inside Vivian’s tin Hello Kitty lunchbox, and off I went.

“Nice lunchbox,” Pam, the secretery, tells me as I sign in as a visitor and grab my pass.

“Thanks.  I can just wait outside the cafeteria for my daughter, right?”

“Yes.  She should be on the playground right now, but her class will be in shortly.”

So off I go, down the hall to the cafeteria entrance, where I wait for my daughter.

It begins.

Some of the older kids are shuffling out of the cafeteria, forming lines in the hall to move on to their next class.  All they see is a grown man with a Hello Kitty lunchbox.  The questions begin immediately.

“Is that YOUR lunchbox?”

“No, it’s my daughter’s.”

“Did she forget it?”

“No…she’s got another lunchbox.  My lunch is in here.”

“So, it IS your lunchbox.”

“I didn’t say that.  I just said my lunch was in it!”

“Do you like Hello Kitty?”

(Getting angry now…)  “Hello Kitty is fine.  I don’t really care.  I’m here to have lunch with my daughter.”

“Who’s your daughter?”

“Vivian.”

Finally, the teacher comes out and escort these little hooligans off.  At the far end of the hall I see a kindergarten class forming a line to come down to the cafeteria.  I don’t see my daughter, but that’s no surprise.  There are six Kindergarten classes.  These kids start making their way toward me, and I can already hear them talking.

“That’s Vivian’s daddy!”

“Is that a Hello Kitty lunchbox?”

The kids pass me and waddle into the cafeteria.  Now, another class is forming at the end of the hall.  These kids have their jackets still on, so I know my child is among them (coming in from recess on the playground).  She doesn’t see me at first, but I see her, and I feel genuinely happy inside.  This is going to be such a surprise.

The class starts moving down the hall.  They get about halfway when Vivian looks up and notices me.  A smile brighter than the summer sun lights up her face.  She’s all waves and grins, and I can see the bounce in her step as she approaches.  It’s like watching Tigger from the Winnie The Pooh cartoons.  She finally reaches me.

“Daddy!  What are YOU doing here?”

“I came to have lunch with you.  Is that okay?”

She’s nodding emphatically.

“Uh huh!”

The other kids are noticing me as well.

“Hi, Vivian’s Daddy!  Is that Hello Kitty on your lunchbox?”

“It’s NOT my lunchbox, it’s Vivian’s.  I’m just borrowing it!”

We go inside, and I practically have to do yoga to fold myself into the little bench table.  Some other little girl (I don’t remember her name), parks herself right next to me.

“Are you Vivian’s Daddy?”

“Yes, I am.  I’m here to have lunch with her today.”

“I’m chatty.”

I thought she was telling me her name.  No.  Chatty is an adverb, modifying what, exactly, this dear child is.  She’s chatty.  She’s chatty as fuck, to be brutally honest.  The whole time I’m at the table, this girl is grabbing my shoulder and turning me toward her so she can make small talk with me (pardon the pun).  I’m trying to have lunch with my daughter and this kid is horning in like a miniature Jersey Shore girl.  Across from us are more kids, eyeing me suspiciously, then my lunchbox, then me again.

“Is that your Hello Kitty lunchbox?”

“NO!  No it isn’t.  Holy cow, what’s with you kids?”

The reality is that I DO have my own lunchbox…It just has pictures of THE EVIL DEAD on it, which I thought might be inappropriate.  I open the Hello Kitty lunchbox and pull out my sandwich and yogurt.  Vivian pulls out her own sandwich and wolfs it down.  Then she produces a small Tupperware container of the shepherd’s pie I made for dinner last night, and wolfs that down, too.  She isn’t really talking a lot.  It’s more like she’s nestling up close to me as she eats, watching the other kids bombard me with questions.

“Do you remember me from last year?”  One kid asks.  Oddly enough, I do.  His name is Lucas, and I say hello to him.  And then the other kids are all interrogating me.  “Do you remember ME?”

“No.”

“How ’bout ME?”

“Nope.”

“Have you been to this school before?”

“Oh, yes…I was here for the Star Party a month ago.  Were you at that?”

“I didn’t know we had a Star Party…” (Kid looks absolutely forelorn.  I feel like I just ran over his dog).

“Do you like Hello Kitty?”

By this point, all I can hear in my head is Arnold Schwarzenegger screaming, “Shut up!  Shut up!  Everybody be quiet!”

“Yeah, Hello Kitty is great.”

“I made a Hello Kitty at Build-a-Bear!”

“Have you ever gone to Build-a-Bear?”

Chatty is driving me nuts.  She’s now standing on the bench beside me, tapping my shoulder every few seconds.  I wonder if this kid ever gets any attention at home, and suddenly I feel terrible for her.   By now, she’s asking me to open her milk for her and examine her lunch.

“Yes, we took Vivian to Build-a-Bear one time.  It was really neat.”

Vivian looks at me.  “We’ve never been to Build-a-Bear!”

“Yes we have, sweetie.  You made a penguin and dressed it up like Cinderella.  Remember?”

Vivian thinks for a minute.  “Oh, yeah.  We did.”

I finish my lunch, then look at my daughter conspiritorially.  “Guess what I brought…”

“What, Daddy?”

I pull out the two Oreos.  I hand her one.

“I don’t want this…I don’t like mint.”

“You haven’t even tried it.  Why don’t you try it first?”

She takes the cookie and nibbles an edge.

“I like the cookie part but not the cream.”

The other kids have noticed that I brought cookies.

“Are those Oreos???” one kid shouts.

“Shhh…keep it down, will ya?” I whisper at him.

Chatty’s all torqued up.  “Did you bring more?  Can we have some?”

“I just brought two…One for me and one for Viv.”

“I don’t want mine,” Vivian says, pushing hers back at me.  I snatch up the cookie, pull it apart, and scoop all the mint cream off with my spoon.  When it’s almost clean, I push both halves back.

“There’s still cream on them,” she insists.

“Just a little.  You won’t notice.”

She puts one half in her mouth.

“I can still taste it.”

“Fine, give it back.”  I shove the other half in my mouth and eat it.  The kids are all staring at me.  I see one kid (I think his name is Layne) drooling out of the corner of his lips.  Another child, a little girl, is looking at the empty bag of cookie crumbs, and then at her carrot sticks and yogurt, and realizing that she got hosed.

“It’s time to clean up,” one of the aides admonishes, and the kids begin gathering their trash.  I collect all of Vivian’s trash and deposit it in the Hello Kitty lunchbox.  I can just as easily throw it away when I get home.

“I have to go now,” I tell my daughter.  “But I’m glad I got to have lunch with you.  This was really special for me.”

“Me, too,” my beautiful child replies.  “Can we do this again sometime?”

“I’d love that.”

I hug my child.  She grabs my face and pulls me toward her, and plants a kiss right on my chin.  “Thank you, Daddy,” she says, and then she’s off to form a line with the other children.  I head back down the hall to the main office.  I return my pass and sign out, and thank the receptionist for her assistance.

I’m out the door and halfway to my car when I see another father walking toward the entrance.  He’s got a Tinkerbell backpack in his grip.  He nods at me and says, “Nice lunchbox.”  I grin back and say, “Nice backpack.”

And then I’m heading back home to wait for my child to get off the schoolbus.  It’s been 35 years since I sat at a lunch table with a group of kindergarteners, but in those 35 years, not a damn thing has changed.  My bologna and cheese sandwich with my daughter was the best lunch ever.  🙂