Friday, March 31, 2023
I checked in to school this morning and did not receive a sub folder – the place where I found the free lunch ticket yesterday. I just got a key. I thought about asking for one. Maybe I could check to see that they were in the folders every day and it wasn’t leftover from a bygone idea about being nice to subs. No. I decided I would just go on. I looked at my coupon that I had left on my desk yesterday and it said it expires at the end of the school year. I was good to go.
At lunchtime, I just boldly walked into the cafeteria and greeted the three most unfriendly looking lunch ladies you could possibly find. I showed them my ticket and asked if it was a thing. The closest woman said, “You can have pasta or pancake on a stick.” I had already decided on the pasta. Pancake on a stick seemed more like a snack than lunch. I asked if I could have salad or fruit and she sighed, “You can have both if you really want them. And a milk.” Oh, I wanted them. I was going whole nine yards on this.
I sat alone in my room and feasted on school lunch. I was the happiest lunch eater, I’m pretty sure.
The kids weren’t as cute today. I need to remember to come to this job on Tuesdays or Thursdays, instead of MondayWednesdayFriday.
We drove home from Minneapolis tonight in a bit of a blizzard. The significant rain we were having on the drive in had turned to snow and was really clogging things up. As we zoomed along I-94 at 19mph, I asked Keith what he thought he would be doing if he wasn’t a computer guy. He was surprised at the question (I think) and hesitated. I asked, “Do you think you would be a snowplow driver?” He said no, he didn’t think so. I said he would be good at it. I was thinking maybe he would have been an electrician or a house inspector or a house builder when he said, “I guess I would be teaching music. I’d be a music teacher (kinda repetitive, I know, but the question had surprised him).” I guess I forgot about his music stuff. Huh.
Then he said, “Danesh Forouhari.” Obviously, I responded, “What?”
“Danesh Forouhari. He was my teacher in…um…second semester freshman year, I guess. I was in class and he looked down at me from his podium and said he wanted to see me in his office after class. I thought crap, what did I do? I went to his office and he said, ‘It says here that you are a music major. Anybody can be a musician their whole life. I know really good musicians who have other jobs. You should be a computer science major instead. You have a real knack for this.’ And so I did. I should look him up and thank him. He was right.”
I had never heard that name nor heard that story before. A free lunch and a new story. What a day.