Safety pins are the key

Somebody asked me last week what I was getting Brenna for 6th grade graduation. I looked at her and kind of laughed and then she said, "No. Really." I said,"For sixth grade graduation? I don't know. How about a Trapper Keeper?" She then said, "Really? That's what you're getting her? I'm getting my daughter a charm bracelet with a mortar board on it." I cocked my head at her and said, "You know, she's not really graduating from anything. She's just moving on to Junior High. Unless you home-school, it's the law." She just shrugged her shoulders and changed the subject. But, I couldn't let it go. I kept saying things like, "What exactly are you celebrating with this 'graduation'? Did you doubt she was going to make it this far?"

Suffice it to say, she was not amused and soon left my company. Whatever. Who wants to talk to someone who thinks finishing sixth grade is worthy of jewelry? If her kid really earned her bracelet then she's a moron and I don't want my daughter hanging around with dummies.

However, there is this feeling around town that leaving 6th grade is somehow worthy of celebration. I recently joined a committee at school that is in charge of the sixth grade end of the year celebration. Like an idiot, I thought the kids would have a picnic on the playground of the school while all the other kids sat inside with their noses pressed to the windows watching the 6th graders skip a day of school. That would satisfy two objectives; making the 6th graders feel special, as well as allowing them to visibly rub it in their school-mates faces that they are special. But, I was wrong about this committee. They wanted to plan an "outing" for the kids...like a day at Laser Quest or a train-ride to Chicago and then a boat tour! Then the kids would have a pizza lunch and then come back to school where there would be a bunch of those rental bouncy-houses on the playground for them to jump in. Not ONE bouncy-house, but a BUNCH of them so no one would have to wait for a turn! Now, there were PTA funds designated for this party, but the consensus was that it was not enough and we needed to do some fund raising. One of the ideas was a car-wash run by and manned with the parents of sixth graders! I was like, "Huh? I'm not going to get to go to Laser Quest or bounce in a jumping thing. Let the stupid kids wash the cars. I went to college, for God's sake. I'm not washing cars so my stupid spoiled kid can cavort around Laser Quest!"

Well, I was outnumbered. Plus, I didn't actually say any of this out loud because everyone else was really serious. After a while I stopped listening anyway because I was terribly distracted by one of the other mothers. She was skinny, had a diamond ring worthy of Elizabeth Taylor, was really tan and wore a low-cut shirt so we could all see her perfectly rounded fake boobs. The funny part to me was that she had this really huge nose and I kept thinking that she should have spent her plastic surgery money on rhinoplasty instead of implants. I mean, she looked like a toothpick with two miniature marshmallows glued on it. Then I kept trying to picture what her husband must look like. By the time I started paying attention again the meeting was over and the fund raiser had been agreed upon.

OK. So the fund raiser was a coat check at the school Fun Fair. There was to be no fee for this, just a big donation jar so people could give what they felt was fair. The coat check was going to be run by two women who have daughters in Brenna's class so I thought I would go ahead and volunteer to help out. Since I was on the committee I thought it would be really lame if I didn't volunteer for something and these two women are fun so it made perfect sense.

When I got to the coat check area on Fun Fair night I was ready. We were all there early so we would be ready for the first arrivals. My friends had all the logistics figured out...the kids would take the coats, give the person a ticket and we (the grown-ups) would take the other half of the ticket, attach it to the coat (or coats, because we encouraged families to take one ticket for all their coats) and hang it/them up in numerical order on coat racks in the teacher's lounge. Sounds easy enough. I was looking forward to just relaxing and hanging up a few coats and talking to the other mothers. It wasn't that I wasn't taking the whole thing seriously but I wasn't too uptight either. Well, the minute the coats started to show up one of the mothers, who is about 5 feet tall and is from Wales so she has this delightful accent, turned into the "coat closet Nazi". She was telling us we were falling behind, she was standing guard at the door to the teacher's lounge and if anyone tried to get in she would say, "Where do you think you're going?" She told us all that when people came to pick up their coats at the end of the night we were to take the tickets off the coats and save the safety pins we used to attach the tickets so they could be used again next year. It was hilarious. I even offered her five bucks to replace the safety pins so we wouldn't have to bother taking the tickets off and she looked at me and said, "I'm cheap." Keep in mind that this woman lives in a beautiful huge house. Her laundry room has the same square footage as my entire house. (You know why she has that great house and I live in a little house? Because she saves safety pins. I just know it.) She was cracking me up all night . Now, when I say that she was barking orders and such, I don't mean that she was being ridiculous or unreasonable. (Just to show you how fun she really is...when our kids won that energy contest and we all went to Washington D.C. one of the cool things we got to do was go on a dinner cruise. The boat was really big, with multiple decks and the kids were all dressed up and excited. We filed on the boat and entered the room where the dinner was taking place and her first words were, "Is that a BAR over there in the corner? Look!! There's a bar!!") She kept smiling and laughing the whole time, but she was really serious about this too. There weren't going to be ANY LOST COATS!! Not on her watch. She had a system, man, and we were not to mess it up! Even my other friend, who was the co-leader of the coat check, just followed directions. (Although at one point when the Nazi said we needed to keep all the safety pins, I think she muttered, "I brought the safety pins and I don't care if we keep them or not.")

Looking back, I am very glad she was in charge. If I would have been in charge we would have just thrown all the coats in a big pile and sat around complaining about our husbands all night. Then when people came back to pick up their coats we would have been screwed. Thanks to her, the coat closet was a big success and raised a zillion dollars so now our kids can go to Game Works and eat steak and get a commemorative charm bracelet for "sixth grade ditch day". Yippee!!