The lunch room, delicious but deadly

When you’re in school lunch is often the only time you can get together with all of your friends during the day. As a result a lot of funny things happen during that hour. In Jr High our rectangular lunch tables were lined up head to toe in rows, the table we congregated at was located next to one of the walls of the cafeteria. Pretty non descript, except for the fact that this was the wall that the line formed at for the “snack bar”, where you could spend your money on ice cream bars, cookies and soft pretzels instead of the nutritious lunch your parents thought you were eating.

Being the lazy 13 year olds we were we didn’t see the need to walk all the way around the row of 5 connected tables to reach the line. After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? Easy solution, we would roll our table in one direction and the table next to us would roll theirs in the opposite direction creating a walkway to the snack line (the tables had wheels, so if you got everyone to move in the same direction you would be mobile). As with just about everything we did, getting from point A to point B took a few detours.

You see, the table next to us was filled with young naïve 6^th graders. Why just create a walkway when we could have some fun? It didn’t take too much convincing to get the 6^th graders to grab the end of their table and start pulling it away from ours, “So we can create a shortcut to the snack line”. Once their hands were in position, acting like a well oiled machine, we pulled our table back and then slammed it forward trapping their fingers in between the two tables. The lunch room is a loud and unruly place; the cries of a few unfortunate 6^th graders often go unnoticed – as did our laughter. Once we all had our fun we apologized (and released their fingers). We assured them that this time we only wanted to create a shortcut and there would be no foul play; naïve 6^th graders. Once again our table moved with swift and decisive force. Kids cried out in pain (in their case) and in laughter (in our case). After a few minutes things died down, and we released their fingers from our rolling death trap. Still, the question remained, could this trap catch any flies?

It took some convincing to assure them that their part in out game was over. We separated the tables about 2 feet – just enough to be an appealing oasis for a weary kid with a handful of snacks. We waited patiently for someone to take the bait, and then it happened. He walked up to the newly created shortcut and before he realized what had happened it was too late – our table was in motion and it crashed into his stomach causing an instant spasm. Snacks dropped to the floor, tears welled up, he tried to cry out but his air was snatched by the crushing blow of the table. We pulled the table back and he fell to the floor, as did we, in a spasm of laughter.