So in school, we had lunchboxes. Only until...I don't know...second or third grade. Then we'd switch to "sack" lunches. I can't remember ever hearing that, frankly, gay term but I can't think what else we would have said. We used small paper bags to carry our lunch.

But why? Lunchboxes are clearly superior. And it's sad that by the age of...I don't know...8 or so, you're considered too old for a lunchbox.

I had a Dragon's Lair lunchbox. I'm not sure if this was based on the terrible video game or the horrendous cartoon. I wasn't familiar with either at the time. I just thought it was a cool design. Even years after I stopped using the lunchbox, I would pull it out just to look at it. There was all kinds of cool shit on the sides of the lunchbox. Cool little scenes. And the sort of embossed parts were cool too.

Apparently, this was the last metal lunchbox ever made. They switched to plastic after this one. So a lot of kids had the plastic lunchboxes and their numbers just grew every year. I wasn't jealous. I was happy with my lunchbox. But it marked a change in lunchbox production from durable metal to cheap plastic. This is something that you saw in the toy industry, the car industry, everything. A race to the bottom to maximise profits.

So we'd bring our lunch to school in our lunchboxes. And when we got to the playground in the mornings we'd put our lunchboxes on the stairs. There was a small staircase with maybe six steps that lead to the entrance of the school. It was a double-sided stair case. Six steps on both sides. Formed a sort of pyramid.

So the kids would get there and put their lunchboxes on the steps. The kids on this playground were boys in the 1st to 4th grade and girls 1st to 8th grade. In the 5th grade, boys were moved to the all-boys playground, which was much bigger and had far fewer people (because there weren't any 1st to 4th graders there).

I'm not sure if that would fly today. Obviously, they did it because they don't want older boys picking on younger boys and boys play more aggressively and they might need more room because they play a lot of ball-related games as opposed to the hopscotch and jumprope and the like favoured by girls. And they don't want any sort of sexual stuff with older kids. But still, it's clealy unequitable treatment based on gender.

But in the first four years we were on this mixed playground. Wait a minute. The whole point of this story is that I remember there being an hierarchy as to who gets to stand on these steps. I remember that the fourth graders got to stand on the landing at the top while waiting for recess to end. The third graders got to stand on the stairs. The second graders had to stand on the area around the stairs. And the first graders had to stand further out.

But...if it was a mixed playground with girls up to 8th grade, that wouldn't follow.

Oh. I think it was only mixed in the mornings before school. When we actually had recess, it would be divided into grades. Like grades 1 to 3 would all have recess together, grades 4 through 6 would have recess together and whatever.

That would make sense. I guess. To be honest, I only remembered this today while I was about to take a nap. So it's kind of hazy and may not be based on facts. Sort of a dream-state memory.

But yeah, we would put our lunchboxes on these steps in the morning and I had a cool Dragon's Lair lunchbox. That much is true.

In banking news, I got an email saying that I can submit my passport digitally. That makes sense. But this appears only to be in relation to the savings account. And there's no mention of needing proof of address.

It's weird because you need a current account in order to get a savings account. So...I don't know. I'll have to call them, I guess. See if this can all be done electronically for both the current account and the savings account. I can't see why not.