Who’s Sabotaging Your Child’s School Lunch? Congress Holds the Answers

Is it just me, or have the glory days of the school lunchroom bully been outsourced to Congress? I mean, honestly, you expect grandstanding and a little hot air on Capitol Hill—but who had “lawmakers playing keep-away with a seven-year-old’s turkey sandwich” on their political bingo card this year? As I read this story, I couldn’t help but picture the very people paid to fight for America’s children turning the cafeteria into their own personal Gladiator pit, with poor Lucas Henderson as the world’s youngest, most bewildered tribute. The whole spectacle makes me wonder: Have our representatives taken the phrase “food fight” way too literally—or are they just auditioning for recess monitor at the world’s worst elementary school? If you’re ready for a crash course in the new heights (or depths) of political theater—and, let’s face it, a reminder your own lunch money trauma could’ve been so much worse—buckle up and LEARN MORE.

WASHINGTON—After entering a school cafeteria in D.C. and wrenching a brown paper bag from the hands of a small child, U.S. senators and representatives taunted a 7-year-old student and played keep-away with his lunch, sources reported Tuesday.

The sack lunch, which belonged to Stanton Elementary second grader Lucas Henderson and is said to have contained a turkey sandwich, apple slices, baby carrots, and a juice box, was reportedly tossed back and forth by several members of Congress who refused to return the boy’s food and always kept it just out of his reach.

“If you want to eat, you’re going to have to jump for it!” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), laughing as he dangled the bag above the head of the 4-foot-tall child, who leapt in vain as he attempted to retrieve his one reliable meal of the day. “Heh, too slow! You gotta be quicker than that, dweeb. Oh…are you too weak to grab it from us? Sucks to suck, I guess.”

“Okay, fine, here, you can have it,” Paul continued as he momentarily feigned returning the lunch to Henderson. “Psych!”

According to witnesses, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) shouted “Go long!” and threw the bag in a high arc across the cafeteria and into the hands of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who then handed it off to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). She, in turn, zigzagged through the tables with the food, staying one step ahead of the red-faced Henderson as he tried to reclaim it. 

At one point, members of the Senate Subcommittee on Education and the American Family were seen forming a chain and passing the lunch from one person to the next, high over the boy’s outstretched hands.   

Congressional aides told reporters it was not unusual for lawmakers to find kids they believed were easy targets and then spend their entire legislative recess tormenting them. The trouble they caused on Tuesday appeared to have Henderson on the verge of tears.

“Oh, are you gonna cry now? Does the little baby want his lunch?” said House Budget chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX), who informed Henderson that he was welcome to have a “knuckle sandwich” and then put the 55-pound child in a headlock, punching him in the stomach. “You’re such a fucking wuss. This is punishment for not taking your hunger like a man.”

“Here, have a drink, at least,” added Arrington, taking apple juice from the brown bag and pouring it over the boy’s head.

Suggesting he could probably find something to eat “down there somewhere,” Reps. Ben Cline (R-VA) and Mary Miller (R-IL) picked up Henderson and dumped him headfirst into a 40-gallon trash bin containing students’ uneaten lunch scraps and half-empty cartons of souring milk.

“Sorry, no lunch for you today—guess you just have to eat shit,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Henderson as she threw his lunch to the floor and ground it beneath the heel of her pump. “Don’t blame me. I’m just doing my part to combat childhood obesity. It’s not my fault you’re a fat loser.”

“Maybe try not to be such a little bitch next time,” the three-term representative added.

After members of Congress left the school and returned to the Hill for a vote on a budgetary measure, Rep. Greene was observed hurling the child’s lunch onto the roof of the Capitol.