Sundae Bar Day

Ohh, it was sundae bar day today. We call it the dreaded sundae bar. In our district at the elementary schools, you get a free sundae bar WITH the purchase of a lunch. Now I know I have talked about "giveaway" days in an earlier post but here I go again. You only get the FREE sundae bar if you buy a lunch. Its like "if you go into a WaWa store and they give you a free bag of chips when you get a hoagie, can you go in and just get the chips for FREE?" I don't think so. Now I know elementary kids don't understand this concept but the adults do or should. The purpose of the giveaways, as I said before, is to drum up business, increase our lunch count sales. And it does work. I sold an extra 30-40 lunches today. But it sets us lunch ladies up to look like the bad guy, again.

I figure our school has about 500 students, give or take 50. About 1/2 that amount buy lunch most days. So you have over 250 give or take that aren't buying lunch. Now most of those kids have a lunch account with money or they bring in the extra money ($1.25 ala carte). You take out the students with milk allergies who can't have ice cream, take of the students not in that day and the kids who don't like ice cream and I am left with about 10-20 students that don't have money for the sundae bar. When an elementary students looks at you and asks you if they can have one, and they don't have money, it is really hard to tell them "no". I tell them, "I'm sorry, but you don't have money for sundae bar". I hate saying that, but... I have to. It is my job. You also have students whose accounts are marked with "no snacks". For most parents, they don't mind if they get sundae bar, but, how the heck am I supposed to determine that. Last sundae bar day I let 2 students buy one since they had money but were marked as "no snacks" and the parent called me and was very upset.

It is almost a no win situation and I don't like being in that position. I know its my job, but it sucks and I accept that it is my responsibility to tell them "no". Before the day even gets going, I am dreading it. That is why we call it the "dreaded sundae bar". My son asked me "if you know its going to happen, then why do you let it upset you". The answer is I hate to tell somebody they can't have something. Especially since it is something like a ice cream sundae for $1.25. It makes me feel petty, little and mean. I can't help that is the way I feel. Enough already, at least it is over! Won't have another one till Spring. Thank you Jesus!