Two years ago, we decided to splash out and buy new lunchboxes. The old ones were smelly, stained, creased and too small, and that was after one year of use. We had experimented with metal ones, but they were poorly made and the rivets popped or the clasps broke. Surely there must be some sort of lunchbox that was made to last, to be bashed around, and that would survive the numerous yoghurt explosions that seem to be our lot.
And then I found the perfect thing: made in Canada to last 30 years. The Miner’s Lunchbox was invented by Leo May, a miner at INCO in Sudbury, Ontario. He wanted a lunchbox he could sit on. I’m not sure our children have ever done that, but their lunchboxes do get hard wear. The lunchboxes have been made in Sudbury ever since 1956 and at one point almost all of INCO’s miners had a lunchbox from L. May Mfg. I ordered one red anodized version and one bubblegum pink version from www.lunchbox.ca. They are not cheap; at that time they cost $65 each, plus shipping. They have been worth it a thousand times. OK, possibly not literally, since $13o, 000 for two lunchboxes would be a bit steep.
They are now beginning their third year and look only slightly worn. In that time, I would have bought at least two more soft-shell lunchboxes, which I would have washed by hand and then waited for them to dry at their usual achingly slow pace. The carrots would have left marks on the inside and the split yoghurt would have made the zipper edges stinky. Now, no matter what disaster comes home in those miners’ lunchboxes, I just wash them with the dishes, and they drip dry in two minutes, all ready for the children to fill them again.
And now the best part: I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of packed lunches I have made for children. One reason is that we are mean slave-driving parents who have the children make their own lunches from grade two onwards. They have to pack a vegetable, a fruit, a starch and a protein, and otherwise the choice is theirs. Since it’s the first week, they are allowed to take a pudding as well. One of them packs the exact same thing every day. The other two love taking leftovers, veggies and dip and a wide variety of fruit.
The other reason is that I was raised in a household where my dad made the lunches. I can still remember the taste of slightly soggy cookies, wrapped up in wax paper along with a salami sandwich, and bearing the perfume of that same salami. We had to make our lunches starting in grade seven, and packed them in manila envelopes. My mother got a lot of manuscripts in the mail at that time, and I often ate my lunch out of a big UNESCO envelope.
I emerged from the parental home with the firm belief that women do not pack lunches. When I moved in with the spouse, we made a bargain that he would make the lunches until the end of time, and I would do all the ironing to the end of time. It’s 23 years later, and we’re still happy with the arrangement. Unfortunately, my equally firm belief that women do not vacuum or go grocery-shopping did not survive.
big orange bike 