Owen’s been buying food again.

I don’t think kindergarteners should be left in full control of their lunch accounts.

So at the beginning of the year, we anticipated Owen buying hot lunch now and again, so we put $20 in his account. A few months in, I happened to check his account and saw a lunch deduction. I questioned it (emailed teacher, etc.) and found out he had purchased a pretzel. That was fine with us, the lunch people fixed the deduction to show the cost of a pretzel vs. the cost of a lunch, we had a talk with Owen about buying food at school, and life went on.

Fast forward to last night when I get a robocall from the lunch account warning us our balance is low, and we have $6.90. WAIT. WHAT? The last we knew, he bought a 75¢ pretzel in October. I looked up his account, and yep, there were four lunches purchased—one in October, November, December, and one JUST THE DAY BEFORE!

WHAT?!?!

We figure maybe somehow some other kid had randomly punched in Owen’s account number. So I fired off an email to his teacher, saying we tried to get an answer from Owen but that’s near impossible (oh, he isn’t quite sure what we’re asking, but then says yes he had a burger (but that was the one I brought him for his birthday)) and he says he doesn’t even know his lunch number so I can’t imagine he’s punching it in. We do know from past experience, however, that if the kid doesn’t know their number, they just give their name and the staff deducts it later.

The teacher writes back that in talking with her assistant (who usually goes to the lunchroom with the kids), she remembers a time or two he bought a lunch (once when he couldn’t find his lunch bag—WHAT?!?!) and once he bought a milk—but the others she had no idea so was going to ask the lunch people.

So I’m sitting here just gobsmacked. Of course the money isn’t the big deal here—we just need to get Owen situated with buying things and telling us he did so we’re not shocked when his account is suddenly $13 less than we think it is…and if I’m not packing enough food and he’s still hungry he needs to tell me! He has been adamant he has never bought anything aside from the pretzel! And he has never brought home an uneaten lunch. We told him he wasn’t in trouble at all—we were just trying to figure out what happened. We asked if he was extra hungry so bought more food? No. Was he buying food for someone else maybe? Or giving away his lunch? Nope. Ugh.

So, I was eagerly waiting to hear the post-lunch report.

And boy, was I surprised.

[The assistant] talked to the cafeteria lady and we all seem to feel that it is pretty accurate. I think there were only four lunches purchased and a couple of extra items and three of the purchases were made prior to January. It is really hard to expect a child to remember what he/she did a couple of hours ago, much less a couple of months ago. We will try to make sure that Owen does not purchase lunch unless he needs to. The cost for lunch is $2.90, so it doesn’t take much to go through twenty dollars. I hope this clarifies things for you.

Well, honestly, it doesn’t clarify much of anything other than you are pretty sure he did buy that stuff. They did give us an exact printout of what he bought, and it still blows my mind. Owen is not a big liar—granted, his memory for things non-Lego is pathetic—but I can’t believe he’d forget BUYING LUNCH THE DAY PRIOR.

Needless to say we’re not putting any more money in the account this year. And for future, I’m setting a “low balance reminder” for like $1 less than what we put in his account so we’ll get notified when he purchases anything.

And we’re hoping this behavior gets better in first grade!