Popon no Pump-san

"Popon no Pump-san"
and hearing
YAY!! IT'S PUMP-SAN!!
and making a huge fuss is a super niche local joke that I think only I and (if they remember) a few classmates would understand.

Although I thought I had almost no good memories of elementary school,
there were actually quite a few.
This is it, Pump-san.

Let me explain the circumstances of how Pump-san was born.

Around May of my third year of elementary school,
I suddenly noticed the existence of the "pump room" during cleaning time.
Since I didn't know what a pump room was, I asked Little River (hereafter O), who was in the same group.
I will proceed in a conversation format below.

Me: "Do you know what a pump room is?"
O: "Isn't it someone's room?"
Me: "Someone? ...Since it's a pump room, could it be the room of a person named Pump-san?"
O: "That's it, it's definitely Pump-san's room!"
Me: "No, who is that lol"
O: "You're the one who said Pump-san first lol"
Me: "I know, but still."
O: "(Click click) It's locked. Hey! Pump-san! Open up!"

From then on, O and I repeated the annoying behavior of knocking on the pump room almost every day or inserting a paperclip into the keyhole to try and pick it (don't do that).
Unable to stop our mysterious expectations and delusions about the yet-to-be-seen "
Pump-san", we even went as far as to devise Pump-san's character settings and Pump-san's introduction & pose (＝Popon no Pump-san). O in particular would do "
Popon no Pump-san" with all his might at every opportunity. One day, suddenly,
"
Pump-san's true identity is probably me!" he started saying things that made no sense,
and from that day on, O's nickname became "
Pump-san". There was a sixth grader who was
Pump-san's older sister, and the older sister's nickname became "
Pump-neesan". From there,
Pump-san became a huge hit in the class. And for some reason, people started wanting to become "
something like Pump-san". So, as a rival to Pump-san,
a new character with no twist at all from "
Bobon no Boiler-san", which was "Pump-san", was born, and this also became a huge hit.

And Boiler-san's older brother (5th grade) also, as expected,
became nicknamed "Boiler-niisan".

By the way, the Tokyo Gas employee appeared about 3 times a month.
In other words, a gas leak occurred at school about 3 times a month.
Every time that happened,
we would make a huge fuss saying "Boiler-san is in danger!"
and played a mysterious game of trying not to encounter the Tokyo Gas employee.

However, we at the time were not complete idiots,
so we researched various things
and understood that the pump room was related to water and the boiler room was related to fire,
and we practiced "
serious goofing around" by incorporating that into the character settings.

After that,
"Lamp-san of the alcohol lamp",
"Kunugi-san" (a tree growing in the schoolyard),
"Almond-san of the rugby ball",
and a large number of pointless characters appeared, leading to a state of saturation.

When we reached the fourth grade, Boiler-san transferred to another elementary school in the city.
At the new school,
he introduced himself by saying, "At my previous school, I was called ' Boiler-san,' so please call me ' Boiler-san'." However, no one called him Boiler-san, and to make matters worse,
he was labeled a "weirdo," which made his early days after transferring quite difficult.
As for us who were left behind, to show respect for "
Boiler-san," we did not choose a successor, but instead established the setting that he had gone on a long journey of training, leaving the Boiler-san position vacant.

*After that, even though our class fell into chaos in the fourth grade, the Boiler-san joke lived on and continued until graduation.

Writing it like this makes it sound a bit epic, but
it's that classic elementary school thing where
"trivial things that adults find meaningless" feel strangely hilarious.

Even now that I'm around thirty,
I still get excited about Boiler-san.
Perhaps my heart is still in the third grade.

Here is the true identity of the ABCs in the "ABC Soup" that appeared as one of Boiler-san's special skills.

They are alphabet-shaped macaroni.
The version served at school lunch was
a consommé soup containing this macaroni, cubed carrots, soft onions, thick-cut bacon, and celery.

I remember being especially happy when it was served on cold days.

If you have this macaroni, you can recreate it at home.