Dumpster Diving

I don’t remember how it came up that morning, but as Oxbear cured his beloved cast-iron skillet after searing and simmering two more pork steaks for his lunch box, there was some conversation going on about his monetary value.

“I am the owner of trees,” he declared.

“You own two trees, and neither one of them is that great.”

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if our personal fiscal value was measured in trees.

“Dad, those aren’t real trees,” Puck grinned. “They’re really just eggs and bacon in disguise.”

I hit up the lunch room for about two hours that morning, dolling out grilled cheese (yes, I also ate one), with sides of veggie stix, applesauce, and cinnamon-powdered-sugar donut holes, boxes and boxes of them. Good thing Carrie-Bri wasn’t around. While we loaded up styrofoam plates, the lady who runs the kitchen told me about a few years ago when the Benes kids attended the school and about Alan Benes who occasionally worked in the lunch room and nibbled so much on the food, she was afraid she’d run out.

When I picked Puck up a few hours later, he informed me that his backpack was too full to fit in his lunch box and thermos.

“Why is that, Puck?”

“I went dumpster diving.”

Indeed, he had. Stacks of discarded school papers and a still unopened water bottle. He wanted to dump that out as we went streaking down the highway, but I declined. Instead, he emptied it on the library parking lot to use as a telescope.

“So … did Mr. V say you could go dumpster diving today?”

“Nope.”

“Where did you go dumpster diving?”

“In the classroom.”

After Puck stuffed down a hot dog and a cup of milk for dinner – strawberries for dessert – he tore back outside. The neighbor kids were busy preparing a water gun battle on our front lawn. After I cleaned up the kitchen and rested off a minor headache in my room – listening through open windows to the mud and splashing water around the front porch – I realized that while all the kids were shivering in swim suits, Puck had suited up in two layers of clothes, rain jacket, snow pants, and batting helmet.