Last night was what I hope turns out to be my last volunteer effort at Southwest this year.

I hat e volunteering.

Not only does it make my skin crawl to see 'to do' notes scrawled on my calender, volunteering for sports stuff is time consuming and very stressful for me.

"But it's fun!  You get to know all the other parents, you get to know the kids better and you learn more about the sport!"

I don't want to learn more about sports.  I've been watching Jay's basketball teams for thirty years now and I still don't understand what an illegal screen is.

As for the fun, social aspect of it; that's what I find stressful. I was raised in an environment where everyone was funny, snarky and sarcastic and I never really learned to play nicely with others. Was it a barn?  Yes, but a barn with really beautiful millwork.

I'm prone to saying really incendiary things just because I think they're funny.  I offend people unwittingly and I'm so obtuse most of the time I don't realize I was offensive.  Actually, I don't believe I'm ever offensive; just because you're offended, doesn't mean that I am offensive.  It might just mean that you're a pussy. People are way the HELL too sensitive these days. What our society needs is DEsensitivity training. 

I've actually gotten a complaint about using the word 'girl' for describing a... wait for it...girl.
 
We used to teach our kids that sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me, now some folks actually want to teach them that words can hurt.

As a society, we gave up teaching our kids basic manners back in the sixties.  Common civility went out the window in favor of unbridled honesty, as though that's a virtue.  It may be the honest to God truth that you're stupid, boring and ugly but it's mean and inexcusable for me to point it out to you. It's inevitable that such stupidity passing as philosophy has lead us to where we now find ourselves; bleeding and crying because someone, somewhere, told us they disagreed with us about something.

I was working on some needlepoint a few weeks ago when one of the other v-ball mom's came over, saw it and out of the blue said to me; "You should do some Sarah Palin designs; I'd love to stick a needle through her."

I looked at her and said "I like your haircut."

It's all in the delivery.

There's a case before the Supreme Court right now regarding some ass hats who picketed a service man's funeral because they're 'Anti-War' activists.  What they actually are is 'Anti-Decency' activists but I agree 100% with their right to behave like jackasses in public.  I also think that  the fallen service member's family has the right to march down to the picket line and slap these jokers in the face.  That's the case I'd like to see before the Supreme Court.

My brother Bill has it down to a science; 90% of what comes out of his mouth is so quiet you have to be standing right next to him to hear it.  You really want to be standing there because 100% of what comes out of his mouth is hilarious.

So yeah, I find enforced social interactions stressful. (Yeah, they call it 'volunteering' but it's actually mandatory.  It should be called 'mandateering'.) I also find talking to strangers mostly boring and boredom is my greatest fear so that aspect of it stressful, too.  Although, I'm almost never bored.  I dont' allow it.  As soon as whatever situation I'm in even hints at becoming dull, I let my mind wander.  It always goes somewhere fun.  

"That woman, standing alone in the corner, giggling?  That's Josie's mom.  I know, poor kid."

It's no wonder people think I'm autistic.



 And then there's the math.

Yes, there's math involved.

Last night, I worked the concession stand at the Varsity Volleyball game.  Math isn't my thing and adding up six laffy taffys' @ .25 cents for three, two pops @ $2.00 per, a bag of chips @ .50 cents, a slice of pizza @ $1.00, and two cookies @ .25 per causes my whole brain to grind to a halt.

I should have just tossed a twenty into the till and charged everyone a buck for everything.

Fortunately it was a slow night.  There was rarely more than two kids at a time clamoring for snacks so the gal I was working with and I had a pretty easy time.  Four girls from the opposition B-squad, whom I had watched Josie's team shellack earlier in the festivities, spent five minutes trying to decide if they had enough money among them to buy anything they could all agree on.

They didn't.

When the Varsity was up 22-4 in what would be the winning match, I saw these same four girls coming down the hall.

Now, at the end of the varsity game, it's common practice to just give away all the leftover, perishable food; the popcorn, hot dogs and hot slices of pizza.

So, I turned to the other mom and  said "If those girls come back over here, let's give them the left over pizza."

So we did.

Next thing we know, the entire B-squad is clamoring for free pizza.  We started throwing hot dogs at them to make them go away.
When the dogs were gone I was afraid we'd have to close the blast doors to survive but the kids were all very nice and thanked us for the freebies.

So we started scooping what was left of the cold popcorn into big cups and setting that out.  A nice young man came by and asked for two popcorns.

"Take em all." I said.

"I just want two," he smiled.  "and could I have two Gatorades, please?"

"Yes but I can't give those to you free, they're two bucks a piece."

"You're giving me the popcorn free?" he asked.

I thought he knew.  He must have wondered why I ordered him to buy it all.  He was happy to pay for the Gatorade.

I was happy when the food was gone and I could escape.

I went home and painted some Sarah Palin Christmas ornaments.  I think they'll sell like hot cakes.

 

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