By Norine Dworkin-McDaniel of Science of Parenthood
LAS VEGAS—Last night in a stunning upset, Dallas mom Jill “Burgermeister” Martinez soundly defeated Amanda “Peanut Butter Boss” Masterson of Des Moines at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas to become the new Lunch-Boxing Champion of the World. Fans described the match-up of these heavy-hitters as the “fight of the century.”
As parents of school-age children know so well, lunch-boxing is the hot, new “extreme sport” that challenges moms to push their limits (and their sanity) to pack lunches other moms will envy.
Lunch-boxing got its start in 2005 as a “friendly” rivalry among a small group of private school moms in Park Slope, Brooklyn. But its popularity skyrocketed with the rise of Pinterest, gaining national prominence as moms across the country discovered there could be more to brown-bagging it than baloney and processed cheese. Not surprisingly, lunch-boxing’s become the “It” sport among moms who like to feel superior to others in the PTO. Last year, it outpaced CrossFit and spinning as the fastest growing sport for moms with kids ages 2 to 8 who somehow still have time to build scale models of Noah’s Ark out of crudité.
“Originally it was just a fun way to pack lunches for school,” explains Anna Davis, executive director of the North American Lunch-Boxing Federation. “Now, it’s a blood sport.”
And so it was last night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, where the trash talk got pretty ugly during the weigh-in:
“Your food looks like a drunk trucker slapped it together and tastes STORE-BOUGHT!” Martinez shouted.
“I’mma take you down, bitch! Your bento’s so basic, you don’t know the difference between FONDUE and FONDANT. How ‘bout you FON-DON’T?” #BentoSoBasic immediately started trending.
Masterson had been heavily favored to win. But though she came out swinging, Masterson’s star-shaped organic peanut butter sandwich made with locally sourced quince jam on artisanal bread was quickly KO’d by Martinez’s Mona Lisa, rendered in black bean-quinoa sliders.
“Moms have really had to up their game,” said Davis after the match. “Maybe 30 years ago you could get away with slapping some deli meat between slices of Wonder Bread, squirting on some mustard, and calling it good. But that’s not gonna fly these days.”
No word yet on whether kids will eat any of it.
A version of this post was first published on Science of Parenthood
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About the Author
A longtime freelance writer, Norine Dworkin-McDaniel has written for just about every women’s magazine you can buy at the newsstand. Dworkin-McDaniel is co-creator of the blog Science of Parenthood and co-author of Science of Parenthood: Thoroughly Unscientific Explanations for Utterly Baffling Parenting Situations (She Writes Press), winner of the Independent Book Publishers Association’s 2016 Gold Benjamin Franklin Award for Parenting & Family and Foreword Reviews’ 2016 Silver IndieFab Award for Humor. She’s a contributor to several humor anthologies, including Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures In Breastfeeding (Demeter Press). She lives in Orlando with her husband and son and three spoiled house cats.