Lunch Lady Lessons...

Remember your lunch lady from high school? Well, maybe she looked like this:

or if you grew up in San Francisco maybe even like this:

Yes, I am one of these. A Lunch Lady. Not just any Lunch Lady. A Lady of Lunch. No, I do not wear a hair net. Yes, I wear an apron. Otherwise I'd be covered in ketchup and grease stains 24/7. A Metal Maiden of Meal Time. I literally eat fucking metal for lunch every day while blasting this awesome record:

I've been working with teenagers for quite some years now, I watch them go through phases that would make you cringe. The sheer discomfort of watching a 14 year old boy try to sprout his first facial hair (right) is enough to make me gag. Seriously. The shrill scream of a 15 year old girl when they find out their "bestie" just lost her virginity to like, the coolest guy on the Lacross team gives me a migraine. I literally died when I walked passed a bunch of horned-out inexperienced dudes that were talking about "sixty nining twice and doing the backwards cowgirl". No, actually I didn't die. I ran up and high fived the kid. Way to go little guy!

Sometimes, however you get to touch lives. (Shut up Cobras, I know what you are saying). I take it upon myself to be somewhat of a metal
am-bad-ass-ador of the future. Thanks to Kmart and Target these snot-faced pimple breeding assholes have shirts like AC/DC and Motorhead. All while wearing board shorts and flip flops. THAT'S NOT METAL DUDES!!!! It has continued to confound me throughout the years, and being that this is my last year as a Lady of Lunch, I decided to conduct some interviews to see exactly what our future holds for us.

The first kid I interviewed is one of my favorite students. He wants to be called by his last name which is fine with me because it kinda rules in an 80's action movie hero kind of way. (right-best painting of Rambo ever!)

Brosnahan: A little backround on the kid first. He's a self-proclaimed gambling addict. (It's true, he won me $30 bucks in the March Madness pool-thanks D!) He's kind of curious about drugs especially. I don't know how many times I've cut off a conversation with him after he starts asking if I've ever done cocaine. The answer Brosnahan: NEVER. Anyways, he strikes me to be someone that I could easily "change" (when I say this I mean change from totally lame to pretty fucking metal). So we had a conversation about metal that went something like this:

Me: YO D! Are you into metal dude?
Brosnahan: Yeah, I totally took that class.
Me: No, dummy, not metal class, metal like heavy metal.
Brosnahan: (rolls eyes) oh yeah, that. Well, I'm not your typical teenager, I like stuff like Skynyrd, Zepplin. Allman Brothers, etc. Although I do really like Audioslave. They're dope as fuck, totally sick.
Me: WHAT?! You consider Audioslave to be METAL?! What other metal stuff have you heard?
Brosnahan: (seems to be kinda into it now) Oh, dude, you know that Metallica song "Enter Sandman?" Well, I like to lift weights right? I get hella pumped during the buildup part and start to pump metal super hard. (He shows me how pumped he gets on the buildup part).
Then homeboy continues to drag me to the "Senior Corner" (if you get invited you know your totally rad) and blast Audioslave doing the same thing, then fist pounds me claiming we need to make grilled chicken caesar salad because "how hard could it be to make? That lettuce shit grows from the ground dude".
OOOOOKKKKKK...Brosnahan has a long ways to go. Not really metal dude (above), although your still one of my faves!

Next was Logan. He's the president of the Meat Club. Yes, these kids even have a meat club where they get to have time out of class to grill up their favorite whateverthefuck; and as long as they bring me a rib eye done to my exact specification, I think it's fucking fantastic. (Left-this is not Logan but I want to burn shit on a grill on the back of a truck! Fuck yeah!) Logan is a sweet kid, he's really into photography and one of his pics was bought by Thrasher magazine! WOAH! High five brosef. He seems like someone who would at least know what metal was, so here's the conversation we had:

Me: Sweet stolen bowling ball shoes dude.
Logan: Haha thanks I stole the shirt too. (He's wearing a Bulleit Bourbon shirt and proceeds to ask me if I can buy him a bottle. DON'T EVEN ASK KID.)
Me: Do you listen to metal?
Logan: Uh, I listened to a lot of Slayer in middle school.
Me: WHAT?! And you don't anymore? What gives?
Logan: I was just trying to be cool I think.
Me: Lame, you were cool. Now your probably not. What do you listen to these days?
Logan: Bluegrass. I play in a bluegrass band. (I actually like bluegrass, so I'm gonna stop slamming this kid-AND I'm totally buying him this sweet bluegrass Metallica C.D.)
Me: Well, that's cool, you should listen to metal though.
Logan: Ha, whatever. Have you seen Brandon's blog?
Me: No, is it metal?
Logan: Kind of, go ask him and check it out.

Alright. One of the kids has a metal blog? This has got to be good. Turns out Brandon's blog is all about saying how shit is metal. It's like saying something is brutal. Everything is sooo metal. CHECK IT OUT. It's kind of entertaining.

I asked Brandon about his blog, and if he ever listens to metal. He said "No, not really. I went to a black metal show last week though." He couldn't tell me when or who or where cuz duh, he was like totally wasted.

So, it seems like last years group of Seniors were decidedly more metal than this one, that's for sure. I went to an Iron Maiden show, and saw about 5 dudes from the school were there. They all high-fived me for being bad ass enough to come to a metal concert. (Duh.) And then proceeded to tell me how they almost just got arrested for cow tipping. Totally metal bros.

Then there was Josh. When I met Josh he was in to Ska and Punk but especially Oi. He came in wearing a Cockney Rejects shirt one day, and I told him that was funny because I used to listen to them in junior high. Of course this sparked his curiosity and he asked what I listen to now.

The next day I came in with an army of metal looking to slay his ass. I gave him cd's of bands whom I had seen recently, instead of starting with the basics. I handed him Ludicra, Saros, and High on Fire.
He approached me at the lunch line the next day, beaming from ear to ear and claiming he was in love. I think I was too. Just like this:

I told him to check out the Cosmic Hearse and from then on started burning ME cd's. Needless to say, I started buying t-shirts at every metal show for this star-struck teenager, much to the chagrin of my then boyfriend. I took him to a Saviours show once, and I think he had a boner the whole time.
He also drew pictures for me all the time: (Horror upon horrors: while looking for his drawings I found out that they have gone missing. Most likely to an abyss of boxes in said ex-boyfriends basement. Sad face.)
And he also gave me this Skeletonwitch shirt:
Now pay attention here boys. If you really want to win over the heart of a Metal Maiden with a maturity level of a twelve year old boy, this is how to do it. Josh, if you're out there, I think your of legal age now right? Gross, I can't believe I just said that.

Anyways, the moral of the story is, that in the future we are totally royally fucked. These kids have no idea what metal or brutality is, and without this Lady of Lunch to guide them, how will it survive?

Update: Since conducting this "interview", Logan returned to me claiming that I inspired him to dig out his old Iron Maiden CD's. WHAT?! I asked which ones, and of course they are totally not the right answer. Dance of Death and the Best Of? Nah brah. Lunch lady hooked him up with some sweet Killers, Iron Maiden and Powerslave; three of my favorites. He also proceeded to pull out an epic crossbow he made in wood shop and seriously dangerous metal arrows to go with it, saying he was going to bring me back a wild salmon for hooking him up. Now if that isn't Metal, I don't know what the fuck is.