Thursday, October 25, 2007

If you give a school some parents...

*Once you have a kid in school, the fun begins.

If you have a kid in first grade, you'll want to be involved in their education.

To be involved in their education, you'll want to go to parent's day at the school.

If you go to Parent's Day at the elementary school...

You'll have to schmooze with other parents.

When you schmooze with other parents, you'll have to learn their names.

Once they know your name, they'll suggest you join the PTO.

Once they ask you to pay to join the PTO, they'll feel like they can ask you to contribute.

They'll ask you to buy and sell wrapping paper.

Once you have wrapping paper, you can earn toys for your brilliant sales. (this is theoretical, actually, I don't panhandle for my kids.)

Once you have bought a shitload of wrapping paper, they'll ask you to come to the next parent's night.

When you sign up for the next parent's night, they'll ask you to contribute.

If you sign up for cookies, you'll have to make them.

If you have to bring two plates of cookies, you might feel like you have to bring two different kinds of cookies.

If you need to make cookies, you'll need to shop after dinner (the night before the cookies are expected) for some random ingredients in the cookies.

Once you have the ingredients, you have to help said first grader finish the work he avoided while playing the rubber pencil game for three hours at school today.

As your first grader works on their five spelling sentences, you'll also have to start the cookies.

When you finish the first batch, you'll have to put said first grader to bed.

Once the child is in bed, you'll have to go back to the cookies.

When you finish the first batch, you'll have to start the second.

When you finish the dough for the second, you'll realize it is supposed to be refrigerated prior to making cookies. (You'll decide that this step is optional).

When the cookies come out, you'll save any misshapen, over or under-cooked ones, cracked ones or other rejects for the love of your life. (and pack up the pretty ones for some stranger that you have never seen before).

Then, you'll put said first grader back to bed.

When the next cookies come out, you'll find some decorative paper plate to set them up on.

Once the cookies are all pretty on the plate, you'll finish polishing off a handful of remainders.

Put said first grader back to bed... again.

Then, since it is fucking nearly @#$^#$%^ o'clock on a school night, and you've been making cookies for hours - you'll sit down with a glass of wine to surf the internet and complain.

Then, when you go to the school's family fun night tomorrow night, the PTO will ask you to sign up for something else...


and you will. (you never learn, do ya?)

*My apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff for the unspeakably bad parody of the "If you give a mouse a cookie" series. You probably didn't even recognize it. It's late, I am drinking wine, and my belly is full of cookies (toffee bars and molasses, if you must know).

1 comment:

richgold said...

OMG that was funny. Thank you. And no, you don't learn. I've got two children in Grades 5 and 4 and two more coming up to join the ranks in the next year or three. I'm in in for the l-o-n-g haul.