Fellini's Picnic

At the high school where I teach, seniors are required to take Economics, and there is a tradition in the class. Students are divided into four groups, and each group forms a corporation, complete with logo and letterhead. Then, for two days, they compete to see who can make the most money, and for various reasons this comes down to selling food at lunch and break time. They produce TV ads aired on the daily bulletin and festoon the campus with banners advertising themselves. They often have hats and shirts printed with their logos, although this year one team just bought red T-shirts and used duct tape to spell out Mr. M on the back. Their name is Mr. Mediocre, and their logo looks suspiciously like the golden arches, only made out of duct tape.

The night before, whole families are mobilized to cook, pick up food from local restaurants, and transport huge amounts of equipment (Oh yeah, Mom, I forgot, we need five blenders to make smoothies tomorrow and I said we could get them..."). It's a massive undertaking, and I get the feeling that there will be some very grumpy parents out there by the end of the week.

So today and Friday are the big days. The bell for break just sounded, and now dozens of students are vying desperately for business, hawking food as if their very lives depended on it, like carnival barkers on speed. They're wearing corporate T-shirts and hats, shouting at and cajoling their fellow students, flinging food in all directions, grabbing fistfuls of cash. Huge barbeque pits have been rolled into place and the smell of roasting meat fills the air.

One team has chosen the name 'The Donner Party' and has such slogans as, 'Where all the people are sweet!', 'Finger food never tasted so good!' and 'Where it won't cost you an arm and a leg!' One student, Carmel High's answer to Robin Williams, is walking around with a clown hat on and a powered megaphone, urging people to eat there in his own inimitable fashion. One team has even rented a bounce house and scheduled local bands to play during lunch. Today's band looks about how you'd expect, pierced, hair dyed black, tight mismatched clothing. The lead singer has adopted a certain style of screaming directly into the mic that makes Bryan, the music teacher, cringe and roll his eyes as he walks by eating his mystery burrito purchased from a nearby team. The same team has talked an Indian restaurant into setting up a booth, and an older man in a turban is serving scantily-clad little teeny-boppers curry and probably wishing he was elsewhere. It's one part Dante's Inferno, one part Fellini movie, one part Beverly Hills 90210. Somehow I don't remember high school being like this back in the day.