(Break from vacation posts)

One of my most hated tasks is calling people to get them to volunteer for school events.  For the third year in a row I've been conned into being room parent and mostly that's fine, all I do is email people to send stuff in for parties and get group gifts together.  Occasionally though I am told to get many volunteers for events.  I get the vibe that no one really wants to volunteer and I REALLY get the vibe that I don't want to call and annoy anyone.  I know I personally don't want to volunteer for another "family fun night" because the past two have been a disaster.  I thought I might actually meet some other parents that way, was trying to get involved.  HA, fool.  While I do have a few very good friends at the school, in general I don't know many more beyond them.  There just aren't many opportunities to meet other parents when I have small children at home and can't get to meetings and thus can't be on many official committees.  So when I ended up working alone in a classroom the past two years while my kids ran wild (because of course Sean had a shift), I vowed never again.  I probably ranted about this last year right afterwards because we also lost Emily for a while and I'm still traumatized.

Anyway, here we are a year later and they once again want every parent called and then we also need to ask if any local grandparents want to help out.  I can only speak for myself and Sean but we already give plenty of time and money for our kids and you know what, when they're a bit older we are going to start expecting a return on that.  I remember as a high school student working bingo concessions for my parents and we loved it.  I know my mom loved not going.  I think they eventually gave parents the option to pay a high school student to take their shift and I know I was happy to get paid then.  Of course my parents didn't buy me everything I needed, I was eager for money.  Anyway, my point here is that I know the high school students need volunteer hours for confirmation, so I relayed my helpful suggestion after having no luck gathering parent volunteers via email.  I'm that cantankerous parent that people will be gossiping about but I'm OUT.  This year I am going to escort my children around family fun night and perhaps I will even socialize with some other parents.  It seems most of them figured this out years ago...