Just my four cents worth

When I was in kindergarten, or perhaps it was first grade, school lunch cost thirty-five cents. Great deal, huh? With the start of a new school year recently, I found out that lunch at my son’s elementary school is $1.90, and according to him, “it’s not enough food.” Now, this comment did not surprise me at first, since, theoretically speaking, there was never enough food in the known universe for my older son (now in college), and my younger one is catching up rapidly. But upon clarification, I found out that the standard lunch at his school is four items: entrée, milk, and two sides. I can specifically remember that when I was in school, the standard lunch was five items. Higher cost, less food. But of course, isn’t that the case with everything these days?

The conversation got me to thinking about the cost of a single carton of milk. My son told me that it is fifty cents. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? And maybe it’s not. But hearing this gave me a flashback of an incident that happened to me in the first grade, when I was about six years old.

Back then, I typically brought my lunch to school, and bought milk at the cafeteria. And at the time, milk cost four cents. Four cents! That sounds kind of unbelievable now. Is there anything nowadays that costs four cents? But it’s true. I would bring a nickel to school in my pocket, and go home with a penny’s change.

One day, something happened that scared me to death. It was in the afternoon, and I was in the bathroom washing my hands. I froze in fear as I realized that the nickel was still in my pocket! I had taken a milk at lunchtime, and somehow forgotten to pay for it. I remember looking in the bathroom mirror trying to hold back the tears, almost in panic. What should I do?

Well, I told my teacher that I forgot to pay for my milk, and asked for permission to go back to the cafeteria. When I got there, I sheepishly walked “backstage” to the cooking area (a no-man’s land for students) to find the lunch lady. I can remember that she was surprised to see a student standing there. She asked me what I was doing, and I proceeded, nearly in tears, to tell her what happened. Pulling the nickel out of my pocket, I paid for the milk, and got my penny in change. I do recall a slight grin on the lunch lady’s face, though at the time I did not know why—this was a serious matter! But of course it must have seemed cute to see this little kid in such distress over a four cent milk.

As for me, I just breathed a huge sigh of relief. I had been envisioning the authorities bursting into my classroom to apprehend me when they found out that I was the one who had not paid for his milk. To have made things right and to return to class without the specter of trouble . . . that was a huge burden off of my young shoulders.

So, there is my “Honest Abe” story. It wasn’t a twelve mile trek in the snow to repay a penny to a poor old widow, but hey, nothing is as dramatic as it used to be.

And finally, this little jog down memory lane got me to thinking. With all of this inflation, have you ever noticed that the phrase “just my two cents worth” has never changed over the years? Somehow it has not “gone up in price” like everything else in our economy has. So, in honor of my four cent milk memory, and in recognition that it is time to raise the cost of this saying, and because I fancy myself a cultural trend-setter in inconsequential matters, I am going to start using the expression “just my four cents worth” instead of “two cents worth” in every day conversation. We’ll see if it catches on. Won’t you join me?