I am Michelle D. Carter

As always, within the first couple of days of school, the kids came home with their first FUNd raiser. By the way, the play on FUN in FUNd raiser is how it came home from school. Pedaling door to door or hitting up relatives is certainly NOT my idea of FUN.

This particular fund raiser appeared to be very similar to those we’ve done in the past. It is a fund raiser that is district wide so forget about pedaling door to door because your neighbor’s are selling the same crap stuff. Each school has an assembly to kick it off and to get the kids REALLY EXCITED about all the things they can earn if they just sell 5,000 items. Seriously, how do they expect you to sell this when everyone and their dog is selling the EXACT SAME stuff?!!

My kids came running off the bus, “Mom, Mom, I want a sticky feet!”

A sticky what? I envisioned one of those sticky slimy rubbery things that stick to your walls and slowly slinks its way down leaving a trail of slime that no matter how many times you scrub, it JUST WON’T come off. I don’t think so!

I look through the list of prizes they can earn and there is no sign of the sticky feet. Hmm, I wonder what they are talking about. They must have been mistaken.

The next day after school, more rumblings about sticky feet. “Mom, so-and-so got their sticky feet today.” The fund raiser isn’t over yet, how can these kids be getting prizes? And where is it on the list of prizes? Oh well, I don’t want the kids to have them anyway so I coax them into going outside to play.

A few days later and the hype over the sticky feet subsides. Thank God! They get the kids so excited with pep rallies that it’s up to the parents to either pan-handle to their co-workers, which if they have kids are most likely selling the exact same stuff, or crush their spirit because we aren’t going to try to sell to everyone under the sun. Believe me, this is a very fine line.

Alex is a smart kid. He is very excited about this and asks Tim to take it to sell at work. Tim hates selling this stuff more than I do. Daddy tells Alex, “Put it on my nightstand and I’ll take it to work.” Tim thought that would be enough to suffice Alex. I knew better! This kid has a memory like an elephant. And so the hounding began…

The next day, we woke up a little late and frantically got ready. In the chaos, Alex remembers the packet. He runs into our room and sees it still sitting on the nightstand takes it to Tim and tells him NOT TO FORGET IT.

For the next several days after work, Alex would ask Tim, “Did you sell anything, Dad?” Each day, the answer was NO. Tim would try to soften the blow by coming up with some excuse. He was walking that fine line.

I finally sat down and went through the other kids’ entire packet. It seems that I completely missed the one of seventeen random pieces of paper stating that if I turn in seven out of town addresses for magazine sales, this would get the kids the sticky feet. Luckily, no one was asking about it anymore. Dodged that bullet!

You have to sell two items to get a prize so, I decided to purchase two rolls of wrapping paper from each of my kids. This way, everyone got the SAME PRIZE.

Tim had left Alex’s at work and then took a couple of days off to work around the house. Alex noticed I was filling out the paperwork for the other two and wanted to know where his was. I tried not to make a big deal about it. Everyone was outside playing. I was hiding in my office, where I am most of the time so it’s really not that big of a deal.

Alex: “Whatcha doin’?”

Me, I’m not going to lie to him (this time): “Ordering stuff.”

Alex: “Did you do mine?”

Me: “No. Daddy still has yours at work.”

Alex: “Where’s Dad?”

Here it comes again… and for the next few days… the same conversation… again… and again…

Alex: “When are you going to bring my stuff home?”

Tim: “When I go back to work.”

Alex: “Did you go to work today?”

Tim: “No.”

Alex: “When are you going back to work?”

Tim: “In a couple more days.”

I kept reassuring him that Daddy would bring it back in time for him to take it to school.

The day Tim went back to work, I emailed him a friendly reminder to remember to bring it home. I didn’t want to hear the sad crying that would happen if he forgot let alone hear how it was my fault because, MOM, YOU SAID DAD WOULD BRING IT HOME. It was a good thing that I did because he had forgotten.

Sure enough, Alex got home from school and the first thing he asks his Dad: “Did you bring my stuff home?”

Tim: “YES, and Mommy’s already got it filled out for you. It’s already to go back.”

Alex: “YAAAA!”

I did find this ordeal comical. I knew Alex would be all over this until it came to fruition. It was nice that it wasn’t ME he was harassing.