School Fun

We’ve officially experienced our first two real school events: a field trip and a fundraiser. 

Both of them cost money.  I don’t have a job so I made Michael pay.  If I had a nickel for every time I made Michael pay my way, I’d have a lot of nickels.

Michael doesn't have many nickels left.  Poor guy.

Let me first tell you about this fundraiser.  It was a jogathon and Eva was supposed to go around getting pledges for a dollar amount per lap she ran.  I looked at the packet and muttered, “Yeah, she ain’t doing that.”

I HATE fundraisers.  It’s a chance for every little weasel who knows where I live to come knocking on my door for money.  I wasn’t going to have Eva be a little weasel, so I told her we would just give her a donation and that would be sufficient.

The week before the jogathon Eva practiced running laps everyday in PE.  She didn’t appreciate this.  She wanted to play in PE.  Anytime I mentioned the jogathon and how excited I was to see how many laps she could run, Eva would dive into a whining monologue, “I’m not running the jogathon!  It’s so boring!  I hate the jogathon!  I’m only going to run 2 laps and that’s it!”  Humph!

I worried that she really was only going to run 2 laps.

The day of the jogathon arrived and it was rainy and cold.  We had beautiful, sunny skies for months and the jogathon was our first rainy day.  Ha!  Maybe she really would only run 2 laps.

My mama was in town and when Eva saw us, she was pretty excited we were there.  Michael, Mom, and I lined up along the fence and watched Eva line up.  And then they were off!  Eva took off like a bolt and waved enthusiastically as she ran by us.  And she kept running and waving and running and waving.

We cheered and hollered like we were at the Olympics.

So how many laps did the rabbit run?

8 laps!  That was 1.3 miles - much more than the 2 measly laps she vowed to run.  I was very proud of her.  So proud, I used Michael’s money to buy her a Dilly Bar.

It came time to write the donation check for the jogathon.  I said to Michael, “How much do you want to donate per lap? 3 bucks?  4?”

That guy called me a cheapskate.  A cheapskate!  Hey, I was just trying to budget his money but whatever.

HE donated 10 bucks per laps.  That was a cool 80 bones Eva walked into school with.  I thought it was a bit too rich for my blood but whatever.  If I had a nickel for every time Michael spent more money than I wanted him to…

So! A couple of weeks later I picked Eva up from school and she bounded into my car with a gigantic Symphony candy bar.  “Where’d you get that?” I asked. 

“From the assembly.”

“Oh, for what?”

“I don't know.  They called my name and I stood up and they gave me this big candy bar.”

“Hmmm.  Well, alrighty then.  That’s pretty cool, baby.”

A couple of days later I was cleaning all the garbage out from the backseat of my car and found a crumpled up piece of paper on the floor from the school.  I smoothed it out and taped it back together.  Here’s what it said:

Eva ran the most laps of all the Kindergarten girls!  Woo-hoo!  My baby won gold at the Olympics! 

Maybe I can start spending her endorsement money soon…