When I came here to teach some months ago, I was delighted by the selection in the staff cafeteria. Every thing was clean, orderly and abundant. The nutrition services staff was friendly and efficient. I had my choice of salads, soups, oriental food, pizza, and a daily special, but I usually choose my favorite lunch time go to food- the burrito. I was pleased to bite into the fresh ingredients expertly blended in a delicious flour tortilla. Then my culinary joy came crashing down around me: there was blandness in paradise.

I opened a package of Jose Ole and squeezed it onto my burrito. I took a bite, but the sabrosa wasn’t there. Nor was the caliente. I opened another, then another, then another. But I soon found that no amount of the meek and puny Jose Ole could make any difference.

To be fair, there is a large bottle of industrial strength sauce at the end of the lunch line, but I mostly take my burrito to go, and eat in my classroom (come on in, the door’s open). But what about the students? I walk the campus and I see the faces of proud sons and daughters of Maya and Aztec culture. Surely children raised in the heart of Southern California can’t nourish there souls and taste buds on salsa such as this.

We are knights. We require more intense chile. Jose Ole is a travesty to any one raised on, or simply used to excellent Mexican food.

I don’t want to encourage students to begin a sit down strike, or march in a picket line outside the administrative offices, but I would suggest that we no longer passively accept inferior salsa. Jose Ole is essentially ketchup with a Spanish name. Let’s just politely ask at the serving line: “Don’t you have anything a little mas caliente?”

What is the worst thing that could happen if Rialto High students are offered a hot alternative? A little sweat on the forehead? Will water consumption rise at mealtime? If we’re worried about the tender freshmen, we can hide it when they come through the line so they don’t get burned (sorry freshmen, I kid you because I love you).

I’m not talking about habanero-extreme-insanity-three-alarm-killer-death-sauce here. Just a little heat to stimulate learning.

There, I said it.

Mr. DeVoe