Sack o’ Lunch

I was getting something out of a kitchen cabinet last night when I accidentally knocked over a pile of brown paper lunch sacks, spilling them all over the floor. As I picked them up, I wondered why we even have these things. We don’t use them. My kids often do take a “sack lunch” to school, but they don’t take them in paper sacks. Rather, they use insulated lunch bags. They put their food inside and, if the food is perishable, put in a reusable ice pack to keep the food cool (which wouldn’t work well with a paper sack).

This also got me wondering how we survived taking sack lunches when I was in grade school. We didn’t have insulated lunch carriers or ice packs. Instead, our mothers put tuna or bologna or ham sandwiches in a brown paper sack along with a Twinkie or Ding-Dong and off to school we went. At lunch, we ate the non-refrigerated sandwiches and lived to tell the tale. Every day.

This isn’t a “back in my day!” grumpy old man post, just an observation. I am all for having the kids keep their food cool. It makes sense to me. On the other hand, I’m assuming from experience that it really doesn’t make all that much difference. Long live the brown paper sack!