Does anyone want to be in the school play?
asked the music teacher.

Thirty blank, silent faces stared back.

"You get a lunch pass so you don't have to queue".

Upon unleashing those powerful words*, thirty arms shot straight up into the air accompanied by thirty cries of "Me!".

We spent the rest of the lesson auditioning, each in turn having to sing, unaccompanied, a few lines from Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat. I was lucky enough to be given a minor role: choir member.

Next week, having got the pass, I attempted to walk straight in past the queue but was apprehended by Mr Davis the fearsome Welsh games teacher who disliked any boy who wasn't in the school rugby team.

"Where do you think you're going?" he boomed at me. "School play, Sir" I replied. "You're not in the school play" he responded preparing to drop-kick me to the back of the queue. "Check the pass Taffy, and weep" was my cheeky reply**, "Muhahahaha, feel my power" I continued as I walked past him**.

*Nine hundred boys, one canteen. If you didn't get there before lunch time began, you could be queueing for almost the entire break.

**May not have used those exact words.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Mon 30 Mar 2009, 9:04, 1 reply)

Aah, school dinners and inadequate capacity!
(Not trying to hijack your fine post.)

At the start of every year, the new wide-eyed fresh meat from local primary schools would get first sitting for dinners. And every year, they'd shuffle through with the speed of tectonic plates, take their time eating (having never before experienced the concepts of 'shift-dining', or 'thinking of other people'), typically leaving the rest of us (the entire 'delayed' second sitting) with negative five minutes to wolf down some food, before rushing to the lessons which have already started.

Not so bad if the teacher understood, but worse if they were borderline sadist like PE seems to attract. No, Sir, I can't run after the ball, my stomach is trying to kill me; and will continue to do so for the Rest Of The Sodding Afternoon. So unless you want me to choose between re-enacting a scene from "Exorcist" or "Aliens", all over your nice warm and clean tracksuit if possible; just let us waddle in peace. Thanks a bunch Year Ones!

Passes did rock, though. Prefect duty was an automatic priority (so you could be in position in time, for your half-dinnertime of fun policing).
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Mon 30 Mar 2009, 13:09, closed)