La Mensa

Well, I didn't get scolded, but I didn't do it the right way either.  The whole process of having your child eat at a public school cafeteria in Italy is worthy of its very own blog entry.

So, had I done things correctly, I would have gone down to the comune (local government offices), found the office in charge of school lunches, and purchased a booklet of tickets.  Imagine the little pad a waitress uses and you pretty much have it.  Then you are supposed to fill one out each day with the student's name and the date.  The student (yes, 6-years-old) is supposed to walk in to the school (remember, it's like walking into a U2 concert), find the correct box on the table that has his class number and section on it, put his buono in the box, and put an X next to his name on the roster sheet.

Now keep in mind, these kids are not allowed to pack a lunch.  So presumably, all of them are eating in the mensa, all year long.  But instead of paying a flat fee for the year or getting some kind of swipe card, we must go through this ritual each morning.  And then when the tickets run out, it's time to go back to the comune for more.  Did I mention that they are only open to the public three hours a day?

So what did I do, you ask?  They let me fill out a blue ticket -- which I must pay for on one of my visits to the comune -- and warned me that I could only get three blue tickets in a year.  Since I didn't get to the office during the 3 hour time period they were open, once again, I found myself without lunch tickets for tomorrow. Rather than use up my second of three blue tickets, I sent a text to Angelo, whose daughter is in Max's class, and asked if I could borrow one of theirs and give them one of mine when I finally got them.  After all, they don't have any kind of identifying mark on them whatsoever.

I may have failed mensa class (ironic name, isn't it?!?), but I give myself extra points for figuring out a way around the system...at least for tomorrow.