...whatever happened to them?
As Charly begins to go to a more structured nursery school where the kids are required to pack their own snacks and juices, David and I feel a little frisson of excitement over the thought of....lunch box shopping!
One of the coolest things about being a parent is that we can unapologetically get excited over going shopping for things that we had left behind in our childhood. Muppet Show characters, Paddington Bear books, Legos, Mr. Potatohead, Tonka trucks, Playdough...
But I digress. Back to the lunch boxes at hand.
As we headed for the houseware section of Rustan's and SM, we were disappointed to find lame looking lunch boxes for kids. There were utilitarian looking Rubbermaids, the solid - but old looking - Thermos bags and bottles that I have opted to pack my lunch to work in, and some flimsy looking plastic lunch pails featuring today's more popular cartoon characters. And let's not forget the expensive Japanese lunch bags whose insides are so stuffed with little microwaveable food containers that they would need a Tetris expert to fit them all in.
None were deemed cool enough to merit the honor of being Charly's first lunch box.
David and I reminisced about our own metal lunch boxes during our grammar school days. Most Gen-X'ers probably don't have an affinity for metal lunchboxes. You would have to be old enough to be carrying a lunch box to school in the 70's to feel nostalgic about these metal lunch carriers. Needless to say, we were.
I had a dome-shaped Peanuts tin lunch box with an Alladin water bottle inside. When the Bionic Woman became popular, I went off to school with Lindsay Wagner on my lunch box. The year after that, I had Jill, Kelly and Sabrina - Charlie's Angels! As a kid, I seriously looked forward to the lunch box of the year. I would even dent it a bit towards the year's end, just to make sure my mom would buy me a new one for the next school year.
Like an old song, thinking about our old metal lunch boxes took us back in time, bringing to mind school days, a favorite food, or an old friend.
So when I think about picking the lunch box that will eventually find its way to Charly's memory box, I hesitate to pick just any old generic lunch container. After all, I have such vivid memories of mine.
And so the search goes on...
Posts
