Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
October 6, 2005

Cafeteria Performance Art

Journal Entry:  November 12, 1986 (age 17)

It’s my senior year at Seton Catholic Central High School, and I have carefully crafted my schedule so that I have about four free periods in a row in the middle of the day.  This allows my friends and me to hold court in the school cafeteria.

My friends are hard to define as a “clique.”  Some of us are athletes, some of us are nerds, some of us are popular, and some of us are outsiders.  I think the binding force between us is our bizarre sense of humor.  We all enjoy making people laugh, but we get an even bigger kick out of making people scratch their heads and say, “Huh?”

Today, my third lunch period was going pretty slowly.  About eight of my buddies were seated at the same, long, white rectangle of a table.  No one had any pennies for penny hockey, we weren’t in the mood for paper football, and there’s no such thing as napkin badminton.  We were all in various stages of enjoying slices of bread with ketchup on them. (This delicacy had been sold under the dubious label of “pizza.”) 

At some point, someone started messing with the bars that make up the frame underneath the table.  He was using his knees to raise and lower the table.  The table didn’t rise or fall fast enough to disturb anyone’s fruit cocktail, but it did create an odd, levitating effect.  Without any discussion, other tablemates began doing the same thing.  Soon, the entire 8-foot length of the table was mysteriously hovering several inches off the ground.

Then we began to travel.  With small, simultaneous movements of feet and chairs, the table and its occupants crept about a foot into the aisle of the cafeteria.  Then we rested for a minute, before crawling another foot or two out of place.

This continued for about 20 minutes.  During that time, the eight of us sat in complete silence.  We just looked down at our trays and munched our tater tots while our furniture continued its sojourn.  We progressed down the aisle past several other tables, and people were beginning to stare and murmur.  Eventually, we caught the eye of the only person in the room who didn’t have acne or big hair.

The cafeteria monitor, Mrs. Helen Monaco, had seen plenty of things in her day.  She had broken up fights, confiscated Garbage Pail Kids trading cards, and sent Jell-O-throwing miscreants to the principal’s office.  But this slow-moving spectacle of juvenile strangeness left her speechless.  She stood and watched us as we made our way past a table full of confused sophomore girls.  Finally she managed to shout, “Stop…doing…THAT!”

We did – although, technically, we weren’t breaking any rules.  We were just being idiots.  Or perhaps we were performance artists on the cusp of something truly transcendent.

Nah, we were idiots.

© 2005 Tim Mollen

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