Here at Civilian, summers are cherished for one reason and one reason alone: there are no “Children.”
Allow me to explain. Right behind our office are great places where some of us like to go to grab a quick, inexpensive lunch. When we moved to our current location, we would stroll out of the office around lunchtime through a lovely park-like setting, complete with a large, flowing fountain, and then uneventfully go grab a bite and come back to the office. Until September rolled around. Suddenly, we walked outside to find a raging sea of high schoolers. School was back in session, and apparently there is a high school adjacent to us – one which doesn’t have a cafeteria. We were completely blindsided.
Something happens to kids when they are this age and in a group. They tend to think they own every space available. They sit in the middle of the pathways. They stop at entrances in groups. They scream in the corridors. They roll around making out in the grass. They hide and get frisky around seemingly every corner. And the worst one, they surprisingly crowd the deli sections of our grocery stores. The “uneventful” lunchtime stroll now takes five times as long and is not pleasant at all.
Thus, lunch time here at the agency depends completely on the school calendar. If “the Children” are in session, there is no going out between 11:45 and 1pm. Trust us, you wouldn’t want to get out there either.
