When I was seven years old, I was sitting at a lunchroom table in the Cafegymatorium. Our lunchroom tables were the kinds that people could pull down from out of the walls. At my elementary school, this room truly was a cafeteria, gym, and auditorium space all at once.
Each day, that table was pulled down from the wall, and we would sit there patiently. (Were we patient though?) until it was our turn. Then our 1st grade glass would be dismissed to line up where we would approach the lunch ladies. Once we reached the window where food was distributed, we would step bit by bit sideways, going down the line and receiving the various prepared food items onto our tray.
One day, I was sitting at that table, having already received my food along with most of my class, when one of our classmates arrived, sat down, and announced to all of us,
“I told them I didn’t want the green beans, and they didn’t give them to me.”
Wait, what?
“You told them you didn’t want them?”
I remember that we were astonished at this. First of all, the thought had never crossed my mind, and if it had, I would have assumed that we could get in trouble for this. But most of all, we were flabbergasted because we realized we could say No.
No — We could do that! That was a thing that could happen! We did not see this coming.
Over the next month or so, we relished in telling the lunch ladies that we didn’t want some odd item. And most of the time, they left an empty spot on the tray where it would have gone. This typically involved side dishes of various kinds. There was no way, for instance, that we were going to refuse eating one of those square pieces of elementary school pizza.
We found tiny ways to rebel and assert autonomy for its own sake.
Saying No is important. And we can learn it anew any time.
— Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 