Which is Worse?

I was back in the lunch room at 10:10 that morning. Hundreds of children waiting on fat chicken fingers, crispy potato stars, and packs of fruit snacks. I got busy washing down nine long heavy plastic tables while the “lunch lady” (as she is known by the kids) caught me up on how her daughter possibly broke her hand playing college softball two days ago.

Puck wasn’t expecting me, so when I walked up behind him at lunch an hour later and poked him in both ears, he got a giggle out of it.

After reading up on Spanish for a couple of hours in the lounge upstairs, Puck was ready for pick-up. The Head of School saw us in the hallway.

“Well, hello, Puck. How are you today?” she asked in her slow southern accent. Then she turned to me. “I hear you’re learning Spanish. Maybe you’d consider teaching it here next year?” she teased.

It was the whole Snicketts-kid gang sitting around a cold basement with a box of Cardinals-themed cupcakes and a Redbox copy of “Transformers: Age of Extinction”.

“What?!” was a common comment from the Peanut Gallery throughout the evening.

“This is like a Folgers commercial,” Carrie declared during a particular sunset-star-spangled-banner-shooting-star moment.

As the ridiculousness wore on, a light debate began to surface. Which was worse: “Transformers” or “Twilight”. The girls began siding with “Transformers”, while I couldn’t get over the level of horribleness exhibited in “Twilight”.

“Ug,” Carrie finally said, as we skipped chapters to the end, “We need some classics again.”

And of course by “classics”, we mean something like “Atomic Twister” or a new find: “Metal Tornado”.