My mom is a high school teacher, and would never put in a cent more lunch money than I needed for the basics. We’re middle class, so could afford the extra $10 or so a month that I wanted for lunch.

In junior high, this meant that on the rare special days when the school would surprise us by selling inexpensive, hugely popular ice cream treats, I’d have to sit and watch my classmates all get them. She wouldn’t spare the 75 cents every month or so, or give me any money to spend as I wished. If I charged that or other snacks to my account and ran out of lunch money before the allotted time, I wouldn’t get lunch. Once, she even said, “It’s not all that bad…you could stand to miss a few meals!” Then I couldn’t concentrate as well in class, yet was punished for anything less than an A anyway.

In high school, since she worked where I went, this got worse. Her prep period was in the class that the lunch hour split. This meant that once or twice a week, she’d eat lunch in the cafeteria. She’d come over, on the pretense of saying hi to me. Then, if I had anything besides the regular lunch, she’d tell me I had to throw it out. This was true even if I’d paid for it myself with my earnings.

I learned to deposit any extra lunch funds via cash only. To quickly bolt my fruit snacks, cheese, or Skittles. Or, if I wanted something messier, like chicken or chips and salsa, to wait until I could eat with my best friend and put the contraband on her tray. To eat on the outdoor balcony and strategically place my backpack to hide that I had food.

I’m just glad her subject was a foreign language, and she raised me bilingual, always speaking that language to me.

I got the small mercy of my peers usually not understanding that she was calling me unfit, unhealthy, and comparing me to a pig.