I volunteer! I volunteer as Tribute!*

The kids’ school has this hare-brained scheme wherein the administration sends every important flyer/notice/announcement home with the youngest space cadet in the family.

So, in our case – for the entire school year – the responsibility of receiving communication from Space Command rests squarely on Sonny’s shoulders.

Uh…Houston.  We have a problem.

Why not give every important paper and deadline notice to the OLDER child?  You know…the one who LIVES for and BY the rules?  And feels a sense of responsibility about EVERYTHING??  Yeah.  That one.  Why not THAT one??

But nooooo.  OHHH Noooooooo!

Instead, they give all of the most important communication to Sonny.  YEAHHHHHH – that’s a GREAT idea [she says while dripping sarcasm all over the carpet].   Sonny is more monkey than boy on any given day, and he’d rather be strengthening his opposable thumbs through the use of Legos than doing ANYTHING that requires him to…uh…be responsible.

So when he handed me the school’s Volunteer Book over the week-end, I was a bit suspect, but dutifully filled it out anyway.

Now, you may ask yourself, “What is the Volunteer Book?”  You may ask yourself, “How do I work this?”  You may ask yourself, “Where is that large automobile?”  You may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful house.”  You may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful wife!”  (Talking Heads: “Once in a Lifetime” live version released as a single in 1984.  I added that lyric about the Volunteer Book…but I still think I’m the BEST at this “80’s song for every moment in life” game we play constantly.  The rest of you don’t seem to be participating much.)

The Volunteer Book is where all of the volunteer opportunities to participate in the school’s version of the Hunger Games are listed.  You must then decide how you want to die.  (Working Book Fair, for example.  Or Field Day perhaps??  There are even some die-from-home opportunities like cutting out box tops!)  Once you’ve made your decision, you complete twenty different forms, cut off the bottom of each, bundle them all together and turn them in the school office.

[Speaking of death…I want someone to shoot me with a bow-and-arrow RIGHT NOW!!!  Because the process of volunteering is just about as excruciating as the volunteering itself.  Come on!  Why are they sending home a bound REAM of paper-that-needs-to-be-completed-and-cut-out when we have this nifty little invention called COMPUTERS!?!??  Why are they even still MAKING that mini-scissor-cutting-through-the-dotted-line symbol?!?  SHOOT ME ALREADY!!!)

While I’m putting all these little slips of paper in an envelope ready for Sonny to bring back to school this morning, I’m reading the notice on the first page of the Volunteer Book.

THE FORMS WERE DUE AUGUST 30TH!!!!

Whaaaaat?   WHAAAAAAATTTTTTT?!??!

But I just GOT the &^%$#!*&^%$#! Volunteer Book!!!!  That boy-monkey just handed it to me TWO DAYS AGO and I remember thinking how human-like his paw looked as he did it!!!

See?!?  SEE???  I told you this was a bad plan!  I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A BAAAAAAD PLAAAAN!!!

Once I discovered the deadline, I naturally had to spend the next 10 minutes lecturing Sonny on bringing his A game each-and-every-day.  Especially when it comes to important information pertaining to school.  Step it up.  Grow your sense of responsibility.  Blahblahblah.  Blah blah blah BLAH blah.  [You get the point.  I basically said the same thing about fifty different ways.  In a loud, screech-y voice which makes the whole lecture particularly pleasant to listen to, I’m sure.]

Then after the kids left for school, I immediately emailed the woman in charge of the Volunteer Book to throw my son under the bus while apologizing for getting my slips in late.

She emailed right back to say the Volunteer Book had been delayed.  It actually just came home late last week.

Oh.

Oops. 

tee hee hee.

Well…What I said still stands.  Sonny DOES need to bring his A Game.  We’ll just repurpose this morning’s “chat” into a General Life Lessons for Monday discussion and call it good.

I may be a bad mother, but at least I didn’t miss any volunteer opportunities.  ‘Cause I may as well spend my day dying at school since I don’t have a JOB or anything!   But thanks for bringing it up.  [stink eye, stink eye]

 

*For those who pretended they were once again thirteen and read the Hunger Games Trilogy when it came out, the “I volunteer!  I volunteer as Tribute!” quote is fairly obvious.  For those who have NO idea what I’m talking about, I can’t help you because I’m now on a train to the capital where I will fight to the death.  Good bye.

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