Things You Used Too Take Litterally

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I've missed out on many jokes over the years because I've taken them literally, sometimes I figure it out later, sometimes I don't, and I'm over 50 now.

The first time I remember getting the wrong idea about something was from a song one of my dad's relative's used to sing with a line about a bullfrog sitting on the bank. I used to picture a bullfrog sitting on top of the bank building in town and wonder why it was up there and how it managed to jump that high. Even though the song was about floating down the river it was a few years before I realized it was referring to a river bank, not a bank building...

Maybe it means no more credit. Like you can't use a charge (credit) card or have it charged to an account or tab that gets payed monthly. Lots of times in tv shows and moves someone gets something and then says "charge it to my account" or "put it on my tab". Give it to me free now and I will pay for it later.

Yeah maybe it is a credit card thing - as some places in the UK ( don't know if it happens over the pond ) add a processing fee to a purchase if you use a card and it's under a certain amount

She already explained it on page two of the thread,they didn't use credit cards, but it is "charge" as in "charge card", not "charge" as in "charge a fee". Ezra is on the right track. The students had accounts for their meals. So lunch was charged to that account. And if you used up your line of credit you had to settle up or no lunch.

I always assumed it expressed a wish that they wouldn't be dying for a while, and thus would be around for many more of their birthdays.

I used to work in an industrial park (great place for Aspies BTW). One thing that took me a long time to understand was that "charge" referred to using a Purchase Order and/or a Charge Account while "cash" meant credit/debit/cash. In other words immediate payment. I would have saved myself lots of grief because charge accounts usually had a $25 minimum so I paid with actual cash instead of my debit or credit card.

"Charge" has quite a few meanings in English.

Even before you get around to looking at the financial meanings.

There's "the charge of the Light Brigade"(cavalry charge, and related sports meanings), and there is electrical charge (and even that can mean either to "charge up" your cell phone, or it can mean the two opposite charges on the two terminals of a battery- negative or positive), and there are "criminal charges". A "charge" can also be "something you are responsible for" ( If you're a babysitter the kids are your "charges". And your boss is "the person in charge". Actually I just now realized that both legal ciminal "charges" and "being in charge on the job" both have to do with "responsibility"- so there is a kinship. But a distant one, in the two meanings.

And then in money it can be just a fee, or it can "something put on a line of credit". But if you don't put it on your line of credit and just pay for it then you have the choice of cash, or "charge" (putting it on a credit card- which is also a line of credit).

The whole "no charge on lunches" makes sense now because they were talking about credit and that was how the adults knew what it meant. But they should have known how it would sound to a child who has no experience of adult life and has never done credit. Sometimes you got to think like a kid and I think adults forget to do that so they assume kids will understand. It's like you pay with a credit card and you pay for it later when you get the bill. Though we didn't use credit cards at school, we had a lunch account where we punched in our number and our account would show up taking away the price the lunch or breakfast costs and if you ran out of money, it would just still go down but the negative sign would show. You then pay for all those lunches and breakfasts later.