Yesterday at work, while I was laying breadsticks out on baking sheets, I heard Principle Smith's voice come over the loud speaker. He was announcing that there was a lockdown in our school and it was not a drill. My manager leaped from her chair in her office and came running out with a very concerned look on her face. She informed me and the two other cooks that we needed to lock all the doors including the serving windows. I had never experienced a lockdown before, could this really be happening? When you work in a school kitchen there are many things to lock up. So we frantically ran around making sure we were safe and sharing plans in case the gunmen should break in. K, my favorite cook, suggested we hide in the freezer, but I disagreed. One of my weekly jobs is to put frozen boxes away and I wear a coat, hat, and gloves (we would probably freeze to death). Then out of nowhere, K decided to text her husband and tell him that she loved him. I started to think about what if this was my last day on earth. My kids have been taken care of throughout the years. Pretty soon, K's granddaughters started texting from Payson saying that they loved her. Next thing you know we saw a few policemen out walking around the school grounds. K decided to text her hubby again to inform him that the swat team had just surrounded the building.
While we were waiting and trying to work, my manager told us that one of the younger students at breakfast told her he had found a hand gun on the way to school. Something wasn't right. I started to envision the young boy playing in his dad's gun closet that wasn't locked up. The boy decided to put the gun in his backpack, but chickened out on the way to school and just left the gun by the school field.
Thirty minutes later the Principal came back on the loud speaker and told us the lockdown was over. He sent an email to all teachers and staff explaining the situation. Students would receive a note to take home at the end of the day.
We were safe (sigh). Lunch was ready to begin and the school secretary showed up to get the computer ready to log in student ID numbers. She informed us that there were two guns in the road, one near the school playground, and another in a crosswalk. A mother who was driving her kids to school found it.
When I got home from work, J#2 told me that she had heard that Sunset View Elementary had been on the news. Apparently, some man had been cleaning out his truck and had put his guns on top of the truck. When it came time for him to go to work, he forgot to take the guns off his truck and then he just happend to drive by an elementary school where they fell. Thank goodness no one was hurt.
Lunch was finally served and we didn't even burn the food.
