David and Me

EB, beaming about her new froggy lunch bag

To get EB excited about bringing her own lunch to school, we bought her a cute froggy lunch bag at the beginning of the school year. EB loves this bag because she got to pick it out herself -- just look at her beaming.

Which, sadly, reminds me of my own lunch box history. Remember when metal lunch boxes were all the rage in the ‘80s? When I was nine, I begged Mom to buy me a Cabbage Patch Kids lunch box. We had just immigrated to the U.S. a year earlier and my mother was bewildered. She had no idea why people would  waste money on something she deemed completely unnecessary: “Why spend money on a lunch box when it can be packed in a bag–completely free?”

After much incessant whining from me, she finally relented and agreed to buy a lunch box for me. So, Mom came home one day, very satisfied with her purchase. She did the big reveal, and THIS is what she bought me--I'm guessing from Clearance aisle at Kmart:

David Hasselhoff was my friend

“60% off!” Mom proudly proclaimed. While she was beaming, I was mortified. While I may have been new to American culture, no one needed to teach me that it was not cool for a girl to bring a Knight Rider lunch box. I spent a lot of alone time with David Hasselhoff in the school cafeteria that year. No one wanted to hang out with the strange Chinese girl who had an unhealthy obsession with The Hoff. It was David and me; me and David.

So EB, consider this my sob story to you about how I had to walk five miles to school everyday, in three feet of snow, barefoot. And I've got many more to tell.