Chips.
Chips.

I knew something was wrong the moment the metal hatch clattered ceilingward. Senga the dinner lady (for that may very well have been her name) looked … different. Her face had lost it's wholesome greasy patina; her hair, instead of the usual oil-slicked dirty yellow rat tails, stood proudly from her head in a glorious, hairsprayed peroxide pouf. Her habitual vinegarish expression had been swapped for one of horrified bewilderment. But for that day I wouldn't have thought it possible to look pale under a half inch of Superdrug own-brand foundation in shade no 6- blaring tangerine.

“Chips please, Senga.”

She glanced nervously down the line of 500 or so ravening youths. Her bottom lip trembled, her mouth gaping open and shut uselessly like a landed trout's before finally forming the terrible words-

“There's nae chips.”

The news hit me like a physical blow. “Nae chips?”

“Naw,” she said, shaking her head slowly “Nae chips.” She gestured to a poster on the wall. “Healthy eating initiative”

And there it was, in black and white. Comic sans*, no less. 'Healthy Eating Initiative'. With diagrams to illustrate what foods should be eaten, and in what proportion. Most of them were green. Beside the pie chart of oppression hung a menu of today's choices- baked potato with tuna, or pasta with tomato sauce. Served with salad or vegetables. Vegetables!! Not a chip in sight.

This was years before Jamie Oliver's school food shenanigans, so I could only assume the new head master had acted on his own initiative. The new head was full of progressive ideas. Unfortunately his catchment area was a patch of central Scotland where nobody had been employed for thirty years, the children played tig with hatchets, and -critically- chips were the staple food.

“Haw!” I said, elbowing the lad behind me to get his attention, “there's nae chips!”

The rumour spread like wildfire up the queue.

“Nae chips!”

“Well, whit is there?”

“Fish, just”

“Whit, battered fish?”

“Naw just fish fish”

And so on until it reached the end and a voice piped up “Well, fuck that! Ah'm no hanging around for nae fish!”

Obviously this was the popular sentiment, because 500 ravening youths, moving as one, voted with their feet and poured out of the lunchroom, past the dumbfounded head master and his deputy (a battle-hardened brute of a PE teacher, who unlike the head had cultivated the cynicism needed to wrangle wee buggers like us). Me being the first in, I was the last out. As I passed I heard the deputy say to the head

“Ah told you no to take away the chips.” And as he bulldozed his way through the departing pupils, I swear I heard him add “You daft cunt” under his breath. Chips were re-instated the next day.

Length? The queue for the chip shop stretched all the way round the corner.




*Anything printed in comic sans is bound to be bad news. If comic sans had been invented 70 years earlier it would, without a doubt, have been the official font of the Third Reich.
(Timorous Beastie, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 2:53, 23 replies)

Top story;
and welcome to b3ta!
(The Incredible Sulk Finally remembered his password on, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 5:11, closed)

haha
click for writing good and that
(augsav forgot about B3ta, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 7:58, closed)

"Official font of the Third Reich"
Genius.

A multi-coloured and rounded "heil Hitler" to you too!
(Large Hardon Collider Bah Bloody Humbug, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 8:49, closed)

Nice post.
More please!
( Blind Meach Cautiously optimistic, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 9:34, closed)

*click*
And can I get loadsa salt and vinegar on my ships please?
( snee held his breath since, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 9:52, closed)

Naw
But ye cun huv Salt 'n' Sauce.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Wed 17 Nov 2010, 10:03, closed)

Salt n Sauce?
Wha?
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 11:32, closed)

In an Edinburgh chippy you'll be offered salt and sauce
The sauce in question is known as 'chippy sauce' and is a vinegar-based condiment. Other condiments are available on request.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Wed 17 Nov 2010, 13:57, closed)

Ahh
Thank you for the info!
( Agnostic Antichrist Baltimora, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 15:40, closed)

"Other condiments are available on request"
Indeed for example if you ask for vinegar, the person serving you will scowl at you, mutter "English bastard" then disappear to the back of the shop and return five minutes later and slam a bottle of vinegar down onto the counter.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Thu 18 Nov 2010, 6:27, closed)

A bit of
chicken salt maybe too.

Scottish chip shops are wondrous but confusing places.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 11:35, closed)

edinburgh cunts
do salt n sauce , but it's wrong
( horace wimp needs more than 49 characters to fully express hi, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 11:45, closed)

This is excellent.
Scots without chips is like the 1940s without smoking.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 10:42, closed)

Bastard!
I've just managed to get over my last nicotine craving, and you've gone and triggered a new one.

I hope you're happy.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Wed 17 Nov 2010, 12:30, closed)

Bastards
I want chips now.

Good story though.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 11:07, closed)

That
was the first thing I thought of when I read it.

I was absent mindedly reading it whilst my mind was saying "hmmmm...there's enough spuds. I've got oil...and as an added bonus it'll warm up the kitchen'.
(dchurch bah, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 19:54, closed)

Clicked purely for the genius of the last line. I like.
(BelladonnaAnodyne Melissa's gonna wet herself, I swear..., Wed 17 Nov 2010, 12:41, closed)

Good story, well told, have a click.
Scotland sounds lovely.
( SigmaX0 Dear Die Hard. You rock!, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 14:22, closed)

I read somewhere
that potatoes provide some huge proportion (20% or something) of average vitamin c intake in the UK. Staple food indeed.
Also, I must agree that surely comic sans would have been Hitler's choice.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 14:26, closed)

this
Ftw

And not enough people use the word patina when referring to a dinnerlady's face.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 17 Nov 2010, 16:22, closed)

^What she said^

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 18 Nov 2010, 12:45, closed)

Delurked and logged in
just to clicky. Brilliant!
( splorp ®, Thu 18 Nov 2010, 12:28, closed)