Five-year-olds think I'm cool

I made my lunch to take to school today. I don't do that often but we happened to have things I actually wanted for lunch (wheat bread, honey turkey, spicy brown mustard, and strawberries and apples with cream cheese fruit dip) so I took a few minutes to pack my lunch today. When I got everything made and bagged, I went to the shelf where our lunchbox collection lives. We have an odd assortment - a few gender/age neutral, many for Elvis (Diego, Backyardigans, Cars, etc.), and the one I bought a couple years ago (pink) but haven't used much. None of those were on our shelf today. I had to take the only one there. It belonged to Deb but didn't get sent with her stuff when she left for some reason. I took my lunch in a High School Musical lunchbox.

I was a little embarrassed but, it held my food and still had room for a couple of ice packs (which were shaped like a football and a basketball, thank you, Elvis). So, I loaded up my lunch and hit the road. I only thought about what adults would say or think when they saw my fashionable lunchbox.

However, when my students saw it, you would have thought that the stars of the movie themselves were standing in our room. One child saw it and I immediately heard her tell a friend, "Ms. (Teacher) has a High School Musical lunchbox!" That phrase was repeated many times and the news traveled across my classroom quickly. Kids literally sprang from their seats to come and view the holy lunchbox. I was asked many times who the lunchbox really belonged to, as if there was no way a teacher would ever be allowed to own such a cool lunchbox. The excitement spilled over into the cafeteria as I heard a student tell the lunch assistant that her teacher had a HSM lunchbox.

Who knew that my lunch would have created such a stir. I'm not taking my lunch tomorrow. I'm not sure my class could handle the excitement.