Either an incredibly grease mac and cheese (but it was lovely!) or, when I discovered the computer room and had to eat on the sly or on the run, two Kit Kats and a box of orange "juice."

Congrats, Nicole! That's fantastic. Also, hi - I don't think I've seen you in a while.

I don't remember school lunches. Except for tater tots. I know there were certain meals we looked forward to more than others. I think I brought lunch mostly after a certain grade, so I may not remember HS lunches at all.

I think that I did, technically, bring a "lunch" to school, but more likely than not it was a slice of wrapped American cheese food product on a Lender's plain bagel, accompanied by a banana that surely got bruised to a pulp in my backpack, and maybe something else -- a granola bar? But it was mostly Reese's and Diet Coke.

We didn't have a hot lunch program b/c the kitchen was too small, and it also doubled as the kitchen for the nuns in the convent upstairs (no, seriously), and they got priority with the hot eats.

Oh, and I forgot to mention before -- I was miserable in college. I wish I could say otherwise, and for a long time both in and after college I tried to convince myself that I loved (or even liked) it, but the truth is that I was miserable. As a high-school senior, I was unprepared to even think about what I wanted out of college -- pretty much, I just wanted to be with my friends. Who all ended up going elsewhere, and I was stuck at the snootiest, preppiest, most face-time public university in the country. There's a reason that Miami University (Ohio, not Florida; heavens forfend!) is referred to as a "public ivy."

I was way out of my league in high school, socioeconomically, and I knew it, but something still made it work, and it was a fantastic experience. In college, I was so far out of my league that I truly didn't know how far out I was. I was clueless and naive and white trash and so so SO never found a niche. I was miserable, and my family didn't even notice. My college experience suffered from a lot of poor planning and lack of knowledge all the way around, and if I could re-do it, I'd go somewhere -- anywhere -- else in a heartbeat.

But, eh. I'd rather not be the 36-year-old who laments her college days and looks back a little too fondly on high school as the best years of her life (they weren't; I'm really fucking happy now, and look forward to even more "best years").

Yay adulthood!

The school lunch people were on strike the entire time I was in high school, and we had a closed campus. When I ate, it was generally vending machine fare. Oh for that metabolism now!

I applied to two schools. I got into UVA, my second choice, but it was a really great choice for me, especially since a good part of the reason that I wanted to go to my first choice was a boy

I applied to 5. 2 schools in the U-Wisconsin system (neither was Madison), Arizona State, Tulane, and Harvard. Harvard didn't want me, the rest did.

It was all very half-assed. Not least because I was the first of the family (well, except for the great-uncle who lived in Idaho, a long, long way away) to go to college and couldn't expect any practical advice from that quarter. And a school guidance counselor who spent more time complaining about having to help kids who didn't want to be helped than he did actually doing anything.

YAY Nicole!

So, when are you coming to visit?

I tended to bring Diet Dr Pepper and a Lenders bagel to high school. I stopped eating cafeteria food after I saw one of the workers sneeze all over a piece of plastic wrap before using it to cover a tray of donuts.

So, when are you coming to visit?

In October! Oh, wait, you live someplace other than Chicago, don't you? So sorry.

In October! Oh, wait, you live someplace other than Chicago, don't you? So sorry.

SO MEAN