School Volunteer? WTF is wrong with me?

Seriously, you guys. For one thing, this gig means responsibility, a schedule, expectations, obligations.

Also? It puts me in very close proximity to other humans. NOT COOL.

Finally, it means dealing with other people’s kids, something I generally like to avoid because OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS.

But they needed me.

When the principal issued his call to action, I responded, because that’s just what you do. If you’re a decent person and you have the resources, you should always say “YES” if people need your help.

Notice I said “resources” – that means if you’re pressed for time, short on cash, too tired or overwhelmed, or otherwise overdrawn, your resources aren’t available, in which case you should say “NO”.

I’m being specific here in case some of those hippy self-help types get on me about saying “YES” all the time, and start encouraging me to say “NO” more often.

If you ask me, we have enough of shit-heads saying “NO” and that’s why the principal had to ask for help in the first damn place.

So they needed me.

Do you know how many parents signed up to be a school volunteer in the cafeteria? NONE. Except for me.

And henceforth I shall never, ever allow any mommies within our school district to get all judge-y at me. If they start sneering at my grocery store tote bag, wondering why I don’t have a five-hundred-krillion-dollar purse, I will shout,

“I am a school volunteer and you aren’t ,so nanny-nanny-boo-boo, stick your head in doo-doo, and also your purse is ugly anyway, you stupid whore!”

I’m pretty mature, you guys.

What’s it like being a school volunteer?

This is a question I get asked a lot… by nobody ever, because nobody cares, except my hubz, and I already told him. But I’m sure you want to know. Otherwise you wouldn’t have read this far.

Being a school volunteer is actually the shizzle.

Wait – whaaaaaaaaaaat?  I KNOW, RIGHT?

No one is more surprised than I. Kids and teachers and parents and staff – you’d think I’d be all, “Hell to the NO!” But instead, I seem to have found my place. I have a rhythm, and I actually enjoy it.

Let’s not go too far, though.

I’m only a school volunteer twice a week. Any more than that and I might not be so enthusiastic.

Here’s what happens.

On Mondays and Tuesdays, I head off to go be a school volunteer, and arrive right around 11:30am.

That’s actually a lie. I’m almost always late, because in my head there are always fifteen more minutes than actually exist. But let’s pretend, for the sake of this piece, that I actually DO arrive in a less than tardy fashion.

After finding a parking spot {not a problem most days, but impossible during grandparent’s week}, I walk to the Intermediate Building, where all the lunches are held. As I pull on the locked door, I remember belatedly, EVERY SINGLE GOD DAMN TIME, that I have to go to the office first.

Which is in the Primary Building next door. If I wasn’t already late, I sure as shit am late now.

So I head to the Primary Building, but can’t get in via the back door, which is closer to me proximity-wise, because it, too, is locked.

Fucking locked doors and their fucking locked locks.

Look, you guys. I’m not complaining about the lock thing. I hope none of you are under the impression that I’m unhappy with locked school doors. I’m not. I’m quite happy that my child is safely ensconced in a locked up school building where pervs and jerks and murderers and whatnots can’t easily gain access.

If I’m complaining about anything in this ramble, it’s more to do with the following:

• (a) my shitty memory.
• (b) the fact that I don’t quite rate my own pass. Which is why I have to walk all the way around the Primary Building to go to the office. I have to borrow a pass.

Pass in hand, I start to run.

Because, shit, you guys, I’m pretty fucking late by now. I use the pass to key open the door to the Intermediate Building and jog down to the cafeteria, slowing to a walk so I can catch my breath before smoothly walking in and acting like I have my shit together like a normal grownup.

The 2^nd graders are half-way through their lunch.

And now is the time I get to practice my school volunteer skills. I open bottled water. I strong arm thermoses. I snip Gogurt tubes and mayonnaise packets with a pair of scissors I brought from home specifically for this task. I attempt to keep track of how many kids walked out to pee.

Around noon, the 2^nd graders line up and skedaddle, while the 3^rd graders march in. I stick around in this half of the cafeteria long enough to give my daughter a hug, which she does not yet resent, bless her adorable little heart, before setting off for the kindergartner side of things.

And OMG, you guys. The kindergartners.

They are so fucking adorable and sometimes I want to die because of all the cute. You know all those kitten pics that get passed around? There is nothing a cat can do that is as sweet as a tiny little person offering you their last tater tot. TRUST.

I get lots of hugs, too, which stroke my ego to no end. Four-year-olds are just… WOW.

Yeah.They are just WOW. They are the best part of the whole day.

Then they leave, and the 1^st graders come in, and they’re pretty cool, too. Not quite as cool as the kindergartners, but they’ll do.

Eventually all the little kids get out, and the big bad 4^th graders storm the area. I have mixed feelings about this crowd. The boys are all grody, and the girls are all snotty. They are just starting to figure out how to be individuals, so of course they copy each other and reinforce shitty behavior. It’s not that they’re bad, per se, so much as that I just don’t love them.

Actually, in writing this, I almost feel sorry for them, because they don’t even have a chance of impressing me after those kindergartners.

Sometime during all this madness, I switch back to the side of the cafeteria I started in.

And my nemesis appears in the form of asshole 5^th graders. I can’t stand them, you guys. Seriously. The boys are all jerks, and the girls all have matching lunch bags from Thirty-One Gifts.

Not that I have an issue with Thirty-One Gifts. Their bags are really nice, and I have one, and would like another. You can get your named stitched on ’em and everything.

It’s the fact that the matching lunch bags are $35 each, which I find ludicrous for any kind of child’s bag. And the fact that this entire group of girls all has them makes me think they are a clique. I fucking HATE cliques. Even the kinds I wouldn’t want to be in anyway. Hellz, especially those kind! It’s not that I want to be included in their group so much as that I want my exclusion to by choice. MY CHOICE, that is.

The fifth graders file out as the sixth graders come in. They don’t really need much help, like, with anything, so the principal sets me free.

I head from the lunch rooms straight on over into my daughter’s classroom, where I work one-on-one with kids who need more help passing their spelling tests. Pretty great stuff, considering that reading and writing are my top skills in life. Probably not helpful in a zombie apocalypse, but definitely useful otherwise.

The height of my school volunteer career:

I stopped a food fight. I was a fucking hero THAT DAY, I tell you.

Also? I overheard one of the sixth graders talking about a haunted house that he and his Boy Scout troop are putting together, and I pressured him for more deets. See? It’s good to know the kids because they can tell you where all the cool stuff is happening.

 

The lowest of the lows of my school volunteer career:

I cleaned up barf. And it wasn’t even my own kid’s barf. It was some RANDOM STRANGER’S barf. There isn’t enough sanitizing hand gel in the whole fucking world to clean off the heebs I picked up that day.

Any of you suckers get called in for school volunteer duty?

And do you judge the kids as harshly as I do?

When a mean fifth grade boy totally makes fun of you and rolls his eyes, WHAT DO YOU DO? *asking for a friend*