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Lumps in my throat, sweat on my forehead I couldn't help but hear the deadly hush that fell over the frenzied Target shopping crowd as the pock faced, tin mouthed, fifteen year old register jockey hit the total button on my back to school shopping experience. From the gleam in his evil eyes I could tell this school year was going to be an even more painful financial experience than the last. Without fail it seems each and every school year the supply list has more brand names on it than a NASCAR driver's suit and the GAP donation gets heftier and heftier. Yet my questions about where the money goes and how the money is used seem to fall on the shoulders of testosterone infested, finger waving, hush hush types from the PTA. However, there I stood with my wallet in hand nervously waiting for my back to school total to be displayed on the Target scanner.....$225....yep, California's public school system had officially attached itself to this single dad's financial umbilical cord and was going to suck me dry.
Thank the Lord for succulent, sour mash....
My boys attend public school and each school year starts off with the annual registration packet day about one week before the doors officially open. On this glorious two day event parents are corralled into the school's gymnasium and provided a check-off sheet for each child attending school that year. The gym is sectioned off much like a NASCAR track with the pit nestled in the middle of the gym. The pit is constructed of tables that each parent must stop at on their way around the track. These tables are managed by their respective pit boss's and each parent must obtain a check mark for each table they stop at. Sounds simple enough, but the catch is each table has a price associated with it.
On your mark, check book in hand.....GO!
Table 1: PTA - These women are hard core. Try and sneak past this pit stop and these women will make sure your kid gets lost so deep in the academic shuffle you would be lucky if your child is accepted into a VOTEK school for scooter mechanics. The PTA mod squad should recruit for the armed forces or street gangs. Check written = $5
Table 2: School Library Book Donation - The school Librarian may look sweet, but she aint' no joke. It costs fifteen bucks to donate a book to the library in honor of your child. This Librarian knows in order for her table to get some action she needs to layout the sweet books about dinosaurs, wars, robots, space aliens and football. If this lady pushed crack in your neighborhood your kids would be addicts. Check written = $30
Table 3: School Schwag - The school logo never changes, but the crap this school puts that logo on seems to change every year. The prices seem to go up each year too. I remember when the hooded sweatshirts were running around twelve bucks. This year if you want to stay warm while sporting your school colors in our hood that same sweatshirt is going to set you back twenty-five bones. But, it wasn't the sweatshirts my boys were begging for, nope this year my boys were going nuts for the temporary tattoos. Yep, temporary tattoos with their school colors. Sporting that alumni pride in the form of some fake ink. Nothing sweeter than a bunch of elementary school kids running around in sleeveless t-shirts showing off their tats. Check written = $20
Table 4: Ice Cream Social - I am telling you all right now, this school knows how to party. The Ice Cream Social is the event of the year. Everyone who is anyone is going to be at this party. We are going to tear the roof off the school and rock out with our.....well you get the idea. If you want to be seen with all of the pretty people you had better get your tickets to this social event and get them early. Missing this party leads to instant pariah status and earns your children the outcast of the year award. My boys tell me horror stories of kids whose parents neglected to get their tickets before the event was sold out and how those kids now have signs of leprosy and eat alone in dark corners of the lunch room. Check written = $12
Table 5: School Pictures - The ritual of school pictures become insanely outdated and dramatically overpriced, yet each year there we stand. The three of us in line with dad fussing over his boys hair and desperately trying his best to understand the ordering grid...B5 or J3....grey or sea-foam background....collegiate style or high school style....and on and on and on. Oh, by the way parents must stand behind the black tape while your children take their public school mugshots and then approve the picture they want. Gee, I am so glad my kids are writing the check for their pictures because their father would never pay for something sight unseen. Check written = $104
Table 6: Cub Scouts - Nope. Unless these cats are all of a sudden in the Thin Mints business I am not interested in sending my boys off to the woods with a grown man who is wearing a yellow scarf and dressed up like he is eight years old. Check written = $0
Table 7: Girl Scouts - Thin Mints acquired. Mom in Brownie uniform, so very hot. I hit this table two times. Check written = $15
Table 8: School Silent Auction - This year the auction is a Masquerade Ball. The school auction is a party for all of the affluent parents to donate their vacation homes in Maui or their season tickets to the 49'ers and do so as a way to "raise money" for the school...that stuff is all tax deductible, right? Just thinking out loud there. The party is at a local hotel (by local I mean 4 star) and carries a $125 per guest entrance fee along with a silent bid requirement on something you probably don't want and most likely cannot afford. So you get to sit around and watch rich people buy stuff from other rich people so they can all help support one anothers' ability to cheat the government. Check written = $0
Table 9: Police, Fire Fighters & EMT Support - At this table I just smile, slip each officer a twenty and hope they don't ask my why my car is still registered in Arizona. I had always wondered how cops and firemen could afford to drive Mercedes and buy homes in my neighborhood until I put my kids in school. Now I don't ask questions, I just pay like everyone else....sounds like the mob...or our government...take your pick. Check written = $0 (palms greased with cash = 4...cash handed out $120)
And, the winner of the day...........
Table 10: GAP Donation - Ah yes, the infamous GAP Donation table. The first time I stood in front of this table I held my wallet so tight I had a Coach insignia burned into my palm so deep I looked like that crazy German guy from the original Indiana Jones movie. My hand hurt for days. You see, the women who run this table have a way of eluding to the fact that if you don't make the donation your child will somehow not get access to the computer lab, science lab or Library (yep, your kid won't even get to read the book you donated - depressing right?). When I say these women elude to the fact I mean they say it outright and then smile at you like good little Stepford wives. You would swear you see flames in their eyes, but their smiles are so bright with peroxide you can't tell if the flames are your eyes playing tricks on you. The GAP Donation is per child and per classroom and you don't want your child to be the one kid who doesn't have a check mark by his or her name when the GAP report is reviewed.
Try to skip over this table without writing a check and your kid could wind up on a short bus to an inner city school in a state you don't even live in. Not to mention the fact that your kid will probably end up eating mystery meat in the school cafeteria for the rest of his educational career. The California School System does not forget. If you were ever wondering what happened to the Mob in America look no further than my kids' school. I dare you to close your eyes while these broads are talking to you and tell me your don't hear Tony Soprano's voice. "Fuhghiddaboutdit!" Check written = $205 per kid
Total for the day = $721
Anyone out there want to take a stab at what the class supply list per kid looks like? All I know is my kids don't even know what a chiseled tip, dry erase marker is used for. But, I can tell you each of my young sons has 8 of those expensive, bad boys on their supply list.....
This is my life.
This is rDads life.
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