Remember that ad that asked us, “Ever get that not so fresh feeling?” I think it was selling some sort of feminine hygiene product. Yesterday at work, I couldn’t shake that phrase from my head. For those of you out of the loop, I have been working in the kitchen at the middle/high school. Yes, I am a lunch lady. If my kids are embarrassed, they have not let me know. Of course, they never come through my line, so I am not sure how they would let me know. At one time I thought that I went to college to avoid jobs that involved a hair net, but time has proved that wrong. Besides, hair nets cover a multitude of bad hair days. Of course, they cover good hair days too. Anyway, I work with an awesome crew, so that makes up for most anything.

Anyway, yesterday the lunches were shifted around for reasons that lowly lunch ladies are not privy to, so we were all assigned extra cleaning duties. Joyce and I, being the two most recent additions to the lunch crew, were assigned the fryers. All those years at Burger King, and I never once cleaned a fryer. I had no idea what I was missing!!! We were aproned and gloved, but that was no match for the smell of chicken fry and industrial cleaner. Although the gloves were longer and thicker than our serving gloves, I kept finding smudges of grease all over me. The grease on my upper arms and arm pits made sense, because we had to reach into the fryer to clean the bottom. Fryers are pretty deep. Grease it determined. I had trouble reconciling why I had grease on my neck and cheek. So, I was feeling “not so fresh” today. Unless fresh includes a whiff of chicken fried slightly covered with cleaner. Then I would have been super fresh! Chicken fried fresh. It’s a new scent. And really, how can you clean all that off at work? The aprons and gloves were an easy fix. Even all the way up my arms could be washed right there at the sink. But I think that I was finding smudges of grease on me well into the evening. That’s because I didn’t have time to shower after my shift, because I had to stop at Lowes for lawn stuff (why pay a service when we can do it ourselves?) and ant killer. Then, I had a tennis match to watch. My fellow observers were kind enough to not mention my lack of freshness. Maybe they enjoyed the smell. Maybe they are used to it, since I’ve worked there for most of the tennis season.

I know that most of you are really curious why we even have fryers that need cleaning, since Michelle Obama eliminated all frying from school lunches (and salt and seasonings and flavor). We use them for special events at the school. And since the special events are over for the year, we need to swab them down. Oddly, today I served chicken fried steak. So, they are not actually fried. And they are not chicken. Actually, they aren’t even steak, because the beef is ground, so I consider that burger. So, I served a baked breaded burger, which is called chicken fried steak. That’s not confusing at all. Most the kids (and me for half the lunch hours) thought it was chicken.

I lucked out in the end though, because Joyce had to finish cleaning the second fryer since I had to restock the beverage fridges. Joyce hates restocking because she is too short to stock the top shelves. Now, I’m not tall…but I’m not really short either. So, I got to use my lack of shortness to my benefit. And the real “not so fresh award” should go to whomever had to clean the fish fryer (we don’t mix fish and chicken). But that’s a topic for another time. For now, I will don my hairnet and join my comrades in hair nets. They are the best crew to work with. They don’t even yell at me for singing. Even when I am singing Chicken Fried by the Zac Brown Band. Who knows, maybe I still have a little chicken fried to find behind my ear later tonight. The fun never ends!!