Canteen Duty is Australian for Work Camp

Ok, maybe it's not. Maybe it's not as bad as I was thinking it would be. Especially since I had several people point out how Wed. was the easy day and that Friday is when it's really busy. For my Norte Americano amigos, the canteen is the cafeteria and here in Oz it's run by a paid manager and a few mom/parent/oh whatever, it's mainly mom volunteers. The food it prepped, cooked, bagged and sold to the kids. The room isn't air conditioned and the windows manage to provide ZERO ventilation. Today was a chilly day and I roasted alive; I can't even imagine the 9th circle of Hell last Friday was when it was 42 degrees outside.

It wasn't hard work but it was real work. Constant and on your feet the whole day. I did have some fun messing the older kids. One kid popped up and asked how many jelly juices (utterly vile hyper sweet popsicle) he could buy with $2. I asked him what year he was in. Stunned, he told me the truth and said, "Um, Year 6" "Well", I responded, "I would expect a Year 6 to be able to tell me the answer to that question" It took him a few minutes but he did get it. And then when he came up for seconds he went to the other line. That entertained me for a half hour.

The one really bright spot was seeing Teddy walk Connor up to me to score some extra treats. They both looked so cute as they were sheepish and walking up; pretending that they knew that I was going to give them ice blocks and paddle pops for sure. Cute also because it was the first time in weeks I've seen them be remotely civil to each other.

My hats are off to the volunteers, yeah whatever, the moms who do this on a regular basis. I've agreed to go in once a month on a Wed. but if Sally calls and asks me to go in on a Friday I'm going to come up with any and every lie I can think of to get out of it. Those kids are like swarming vultures on a carcass when it comes to food.