“Yum, yum. This is so good. Are you gonna eat yours?”
“Yes,” she said as she protected her Wal-Mart Yeast Roll with a wave of her fist. Now my wife is not a violent woman, but I think she would go to any means to protect that taste of high school.
In all my years of shopping — and there’s well over 40 of them, way over — in all those paper or plastic moments, I have never before last night bought Wal-Mart Yeast Rolls. That first bite took me back to ninth grade: I’m sitting across from Jenny “JuJubees,” braces and all; with the blue plastic, portion-controlled tray braced between my elbows.
“Hey Jenny, you gonna eat that roll?” my lips uttered in anticipation of another bite.
“You ain’t gettin’ it. If anybody gets my roll, it will be Harold. Monkeys would have to fly out of my butt before you’d get it.”
Harold just looks around for another Harold.
“Huh, when was the last time he did your math for you?”
“You got me an F!”
Oh, yeah. That’s right. I do remember being kind of bad with numbers.
That explains a lot. Maybe that’s why they called me “Stinky.” Yes, I’m sure of it, now that I think about it. “Well, what about your English? Did Harold do your English for you?”
“You got me a D in English,” she said through her candy-coated braces. She was right about that, too. Man, I sure wanted another yeast roll. There’s got to be a way.
“Hey Jenny, Harold’s kissing Madeline.”
“Uh, uh!” As she turned to look I reached for her shiny, buttery, fluffy, mouth-watering yeast roll. BAM! Mr. Snivel grabbed my forearm with his big, hairy hand sporting a gold bracelet.
“Young man, you’re coming with me.” Oops. One can only imagine what happened next. I got “the chair.”
“No, no, please. I’m only 14. I’m too young for the chair!” I screamed to no avail. Mr. Snivel ignored my pleas, much like he ignored the big giant hairs in his nose. As it turned out, I wasn’t going to die this day. The “chair” was a big wooden seat outside Principal Vandersleethousengudensmite’s office where the kids were brought in for questioning. I was safe for a few minutes because I saw him in the teacher’s lounge during my drag over here. I had to think fast.
Oh yeast roll, oh yeast roll, yummy delicious yeast roll, look what trouble you’ve gotten me into now. Mr. Vandersleethousengudensmite’s assistant was still sitting at her desk. “Excuse me Miss Um, um…” Miss Um would have to do because I forgot her name under such intense scrutiny.
“Yes?”
I begged and pleaded with her to let me run back and get my bag because all my assignments were contained within the zippers of that bag. “Please, pretty please? Do you want me to get F’s? That’s what will happen if I can’t bag that bag.”
“Very well, Mr. Bun Stealer. But be quick about it. You are to be severely punished for your crime.” Could it really be that easy? Woo hoo. Oh crap, I said that out loud.
“Come back here, you pervert.”
If I could just get my hands on another one of those yeast rolls! It might be months before we have this privilege again. We could be stuck with pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers and spaghetti for the next few weeks. I might not see yeast rolls again until next term!
Now one might wonder why a high school freshman would react this way to some of the worst food known to man — foods proven to be absolutely disgusting in laboratories all across America — consumables that turn the government pyramids upside down of all things.
It’s simply the fact that my mother believes it’s okay to serve crepes for dinner. She believes it is her God-given right to have beans on toast for supper. How can one not yearn for Wal-Mart Yeast Rolls? Now that takes me back to high school…