Lunch was a ketchup packet

I picked up Q very late, like with 2 minutes to spare before they start charging a dollar a minute. But she'd been forewarned about this, since I knew I had a late afternoon meeting that would probably last past 5pm. My husband was out of town for a job interview. He's been averaging about 2-3 job interviews a week, for about three weeks straight now, and has gotten no offers. This job interview was a five hour drive away. Not sure what I think about that. Meh.

Anyway, she gets in the car and announces she's starving.

Q: I wanna eat FAST. I'm soooo hungry! Hurry up so I can eat!

Me: Why are you so hungry? (as I'm pulling out of the school pickup area, headed home)

Q: All I had for lunch was a ketchup packet.

Me: What???!?

Q: The only thing I ate was a ketchup packet.

Me: Don't they give you something to eat, though? (I knew this meant her lunch account was at zero - usually they call and leave an automated message, but we didn't listen to the messages the night before due to getting in late after a Girl Scout meeting - and they serve some kind of limited lunch offering if you're out of money on your account. It's not much, but it's usually more than a packet o' ketchup!)

Q: Warm bread with cold cheese in the middle.

Me: What do you mean? (I guess I wanted to hear the phrase "grilled cheese sandwich that had gotten cold" but then how would the bread still be warm? I was perplexed!)

Q: I mean the bread was warm and the cheese was cold.

Me: Yeah. Okay. (At least she's consistent. But I still can't quite "get" how that could be.)

It's been a frustrating, very annoying day, with a twist of satisfaction at the end because my meeting went well. But now I'm over-analyzing a sandwich. And wondering how bad it must have been if she chose to eat only a packet of ketchup instead.

Q: Hannah was really nice to me, though! (delivered with a really cute smile)

Me: How so?

Q: She snuck me crackers under the table.

Well, thank god for Hannah. I actually know who Hannah is. I went to Lunch Bunch earlier in the year and Hannah sat across from us. She was the one who kept putting slices of lunch meat from her brought-from-home meal on her face. At one point, she forgot she had left a piece of ham on her cheek. As she got up to leave with the rest of the class, she said, "Oh! I still have meat on my face!" And, to steal a line from dgm, she laughed and laughed.

You can tell dgm's kid and my kid go to very different schools.