Vinnie Wants a Cracker

Something very different about Oberlin, the bigs’ Freiburg school, and Riverside, the bigs’ Princeton school, is the food situation.

In Germany, it’s a foreign concept to serve meals at school. Classes are supposed to end early enough for kids to eat at home. This means a late lunch for most.  Another result of this schedule is a large morning snack. Thom and Vinnie come home with tales of feasts inside their classmates’ vesper boxes. If parties are willing, the food can be shared.

Vinnie asked me last week if I would buy a specific kind of craker that a girl in her class eats: “They look so good and she never shares.” Vinnie told me the brand was TIC. I agreed to look at the grocery but found no TIC crackers.

This afternoon Vinnie came into my room holding a yellow wrapper.

“Mama, I was wrong. It’s TUC crackers. Here.”

She handed me an empty sleeve of TUC. Apparently, the girl is willing to share her trash.