My kids may never forgive me for blogging

“Mommy, what are boogies made of?”

We were driving home from pre-school when Miss D. asked me this question.  I tried to catch a clear glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, but I didn’t really need to see her to know what was happening.

“Why do you ask?” I said, steeling myself for her answer.

“Because I ate my boogies.”

I said nothing.  There was a laugh brewing somewhere in my chest, but it was silenced by a frighteningly clear image of my sweet girl at 16 sitting all alone in a cold cafeteria.  “That girl eats her boogies,” the other kids whisper.

Miss D. and I had a brief talk about how boogies are made of yucky germs, and, in this family, we don’t eat our boogies.  She agreed to avoid snotty snacks in the future.

I don’t believe her, and I can’t shake my cafeteria premonition.

Many of my fears for my kids are based on horrible scenes I witnessed while serving high school cafeteria duty.  Those of you who have taught must know what I’m talking about.

For those of you have not had the pleasure, cafeteria duty consists of policing tables full of teenagers eating, making out, copying each others homework, and torturing their peers in all the adolescent ways that never seem to go out of style.

I hated cafeteria duty because it was boring and disgusting and often ended in confrontation, but moreso because I just couldn’t bear to witness the horror that is the life of the teenage outcast.

There was always at least one kid — a boy who never learned about deoderant, a girl with self-esteem so low she never looked away from her shoes, a child who ate her own boogies – sitting alone at a long table in the back of the cafeteria.  Often, I would be tempted to go sit down just to make that kid feel less lonely, but I knew sitting with a teacher is worse than sitting alone, and so I never did it.  I just kept wandering the room in huge circles, stepping over spilled pudding and reminding kids who should know better to throw out their own trash.

Miss D. is three, though, not 16, so I suspect the fact that she eats a boogie now and then might actually help her fit in with her current peer group.

Perhaps Miss D.’s biggest problem at 16 will be the fact that her mother put all her dirty, little pre-school secrets on the Internet.