By Dan Miller, Today’s Family

When I was a kid, my mother rarely packed my lunch. Most mornings, I was handed 45 cents and sent off to buy whatever the school cafeteria had waiting for us that day.

Milk was three cents for a small carton. Chocolate milk, if we were lucky enough to get it, was five cents. Looking back, that sounds like a price from a museum exhibit. At the time, it was just lunch.

I remember being jealous of the kids who brought packed lunches from home. Their sandwiches may have been a little warm and slightly soggy after spending the morning in the coatroom—no backpacks in my day—but at least they knew what they were getting.

Those of us in the lunch line were not always so lucky.

There was, of course, the mystery meat. One day it was called a hamburger. Another day it was Salisbury steak. Another day it was meatloaf. I am sure, in reality, these were all different meals prepared with great care and strict nutritional standards. But to us, it felt like one big cafeteria conspiracy.

“They’re just changing the name,” we whispered, with the confidence of children who had solved a government cover-up.

Then there was spinach day.

Popeye made spinach look powerful, even heroic. Our cafeteria spinach looked like something dragged out of Lake Erie an hour earlier. It arrived in a wet, green pile, placed carefully in one compartment of the tray, where it hopefully stayed. I was never more grateful for those little tray dividers than I was on spinach day. If that spinach touched anything else, the entire meal was considered contaminated.

We did, however, have Patrick.

Patrick loved spinach. Not tolerated it. Not politely ate it. Loved it. With our enthusiastic permission, he would reach over, grab the clump of spinach from our trays, and put the entire thing in his mouth while the rest of us watched in horror.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

Not every cafeteria day was a disaster. Pizza burger day was usually Friday, and that was the day we begged our mothers for an extra dime so we could buy a second one. A pizza burger was nothing fancy—just a hamburger bun with cheese and pepperoni melted on top—but to us it was the filet mignon of school lunches.

There were also the little buns. They cost a nickel and sold out fast. I cannot explain why a small plain bun held such power, but it did.

It’s funny now to think how much I wished for packed lunches. Somewhere, there was probably a kid unwrapping a warm bologna sandwich, looking across the cafeteria at my tray and thinking I had it made.

That may be the real lesson of school lunch.

No matter what was on your tray, someone else’s always looked better.