Saved By a Twinkie

Most kids love pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate. As a child, I hated all three. Also: caramel, butterscotch, tuna fish and...Twinkies.

But I'm convinced that a Twinkie is responsible for my survival of the fifth grade.

As you can imagine, figuring out what to send me in my brown sack lunch each day was a challenge for my mother. I didn't like peanut butter, I didn't like bologna, I didn't like tuna fish, I despised honey. (Now, lest you suppose I was a terribly picky eater, I also had some strange things on my LIKE list. What other kid do you know that loved Lima beans, Brussels sprouts and - yes - broccoli?) When my mother would make peanut butter - I would request that she simply put jam between two slices of bread for me. Or - better yet - just send the plain bread!

She was certain someone would call Child Protection Services on her.

Mom tried to be inventive with our lunches - as much as me and my sister would allow with our varying tastes. Mom refused to be a short-order cook - something I have always respected her for - and the menu was (and is) always: Take it or leave it.

So she would slip other goodies into the sack to make up for my two slices of wonder bread nonsense. an extra string-cheese. Chips *and* crackers. One tie she even sent me a few radishes because she knew I loved them. I'd peel the red skin off with my teeth in neat strips, and then slowly munch the spicy white inside, feeling it prickle on my tongue. There were always the notes on our napkins, which I admit I often took courage from. School can be Mount Everest, at times, to the shy and awkward. I always checked the napkins. And - joy of joys! - sometimes a treat! I always loved it when she'd send an airhead, cut neatly in half (the other half presumably in my sister's brown bag across the lunch room. In my grade school, you were dismissed for lunch by class). I could make that airhead last forever, pulling it as thin as it would go before tearing, nibbling off tiny pieces and savoring the flavor as it dissolved. I was pleased with myself for having enough control to refrain from chewing it.

I was definitely a slow eater. I'd eat ruffle potato chips one line at a time, like a cob of corn, infuriating my friends who were eager to get out onto the playground.

One afternoon, I opened my bag to find a Twinkie. I knew - even though I didn't like them - that I had struck gold. This was bartering material. This was a high-stakes bid! This was quite possibly a taste of that intriguing but ever illusive popularity that seemed to be all the rage.

But then I remembered Mr. F.

Mr F. was a teacher with a personality as big and overwhelming as his frame. He played this game with his class called "Triple R T", which was just a nickname for his original invention: Red Rubber Round Thing. The game went like this. We sat on top of our desks, and he would throw a red rubber ball at us (not to us, at us!). The challenge was to catch it. That alone was terrifying for me - but if we DID manage to catch it, we would have to answer a question correctly. The question usually had something to do with what we were covering in class - but with Mr. F, nothing was off limits.

He once hit a kid in the face with his infamous Triple R T.

He also once broke my classmate's finger while giving her an 'attitude adjustment', but that's another story.

This makes Mr. F sound like a nightmare - and he could be terrifying. But mostly, he was just larger than life. He never meant any harm - he just often forgot how big and loud he was - and how small we were. He tended to treat us as his peers - and for that, we loved him.

I happened to know that Twinkies were Mr. F's very very very most favorite.

I may have been a bit odd, but I was no dummy. I knew that if I gave Mr. F. my Twinkie, I would make an ally of him for life! Surely securing my safety from the dreaded Triple R T, broken fingers, and even - dare I hope? - having to memorize all the state capitols.

I was terrible at memorizing.

And...I sincerely wanted him to have it. The only trouble was that giving the small golden offering to this Giant felt impossibly foreboding. How would I approach him? When?

I knew that if I delayed, I would never do it. So when the after-lunch bell rang, I stopped thinking about it and, before class started, walked up to his desk and thrust the crinkling package toward him.

"Here!" I said. It was all I could manage.

I'm sure my eyes were wide as I watched him. He looked at the Twinkie, and looked at me. At first, he seemed a bit confused. There was a look of earnestness on his face when he said, "I can't take your Twinkie! You should have it."

"Oh, no," I said. "I don't like them, and I know you do."

"You don't like Twinkies? You can't be serious."

I sighed and shrugged. I got that a lot.

He smiled at me and took the small thing from my small hand into his giant one. "Thank you," he said, his eyes crinkling around the edges a bit. I hadn't seen this side of him, before. And never so close-up. He wasn't putting on a show for me - a teacher performing for his appreciating class. He was just a guy, accepting his favorite treat from a friend, who had thought of him when she pulled it out of her lunch sack.

"My wife packed me a lunch, today," he said, "But I forgot to grab it from the fridge. I'm starving!"

I grinned. Really? I had saved lunch? He tore into the package, and I turned to go back to my seat. I felt like a million bucks as he began post-lunch class, his mouth still full of Twinkie.

That afternoon, we went outside to play capture the flag as a class. There was an academic point to it, though I can't remember now what it was. I suspected (and still do) that Mr. F. liked to invent any opportunity to bring sports into science and history.

It was rainy, and I had no coat.

I stood on the sidelines, shivering a little and watching the game that I would never understand - sports were such Greek to me - and I felt a very warm and VERY large jacket slip over my shoulders. I looked up, and Mr. F. winked at me before he turned back to the game, hollering in his booming voice that we all had two gangly, adolescent left feet.

I still had to memorize all the state capitols - but he was patient with me as I fumbled through them. And I never did get hit in the face with a red rubber ball - or get the dreaded attitude adjustment. I survived fifth grade - a feat that sometimes I doubted would be possible - thanks to that Twinkie.