Back to School by Delia

Today is the first day of school and for the first time in forever, this means more to me than the return of peace and quiet at my house.  It's time for me to go back to work.  Last winter, about halfway through the school year, I was hired by our district to do administration work for our school lunch program.  I only work on days when we're feeding kids, so the last day of school was my last day of work and the first day of school means back to the daily grind for me as well.

I say I do admin work, my husband refers to it as my "torturing children" job.  See, I've got the attitude that if you're going to do a job, you might as well have fun with it.  I've told kids that we've implemented a new school rule that if they owe lunch money, they have to eat lunch sitting on the floor under the tables.  I say this with a smile to the little kids, but love delivering that line with a dead serious face to the older kids, just to see their reactions.  As school was winding down last spring, I told the kids that the last day of school was going to be "Sing-along Thursday" and instead of telling me their student number for me to enter into the system, they were going to have to sing it to me.  I heard a wide variety of musical styles that day, including numbers being rapped, an opera version and one kid even sang his to the tune of Smoke on the Water - you've gotta love a kid who gives the proper respect to Deep Purple.  I've got a whole bunch of new torture ideas in mind for the coming school year as well as making the lunch menu a little more fun - we're having spARGHetti on International Talk Like a Pirate Day with a side of Walk-the-Plank garlic bread and I'm really looking forward to lunch on Halloween.

Life is too short to not take advantage of fun opportunities when they come your way.  If an opportunity comes your way that doesn't seem very enjoyable - you've got to make it fun - otherwise, what's the point in getting up in the morning?