Lunch with the Lunch Lady

My daughter came home from first grade one day and announced that her best friend was Ms. Dolores, the lunch lady.

It turns out Ms. Dolores knows every child's name in the school, more than four hundred kids. She knows who doesn't like peas and who needs their milk carton opened. She has a special song she sings on Fridays, "Pizza Day Is Here," that the kids chant along with.

When my daughter was nervous on the first day of school, Ms. Dolores sat with her at lunch and told her a story about a dragon who was scared of noodles.

At the end of the year, my daughter made her a card with a drawing of the dragon. Ms. Dolores showed it to me at the school picnic and told me she has a whole drawer of cards from kids, going back twenty-two years. "That's my retirement fund," she said, laughing.