School has finally gotten underway for everyone, so we should all be in the same boat: fundraisers! I have yet to find a fundraiser that appeals to me. Some are dumber than others (a discount card for 10% off oil changes? Thanks but no). In our elementary school we get the usual fundraiser with a catalog of miscellaneous crap: awful chocolates, hideously expensive wrapping paper (who cares if it’s reversible! Only one side shows!), odd jewelry and various kitchen doo-dads (a special tupperware for half an onion! Because a ziploc isn’t fancy enough for my fridge).
Last year the fundraising people got down and dirty. They decided to give the kids dorky little rubber duck keychains–one for every $10 of products sold. Here’s the catch: there were about a dozen different styles of ducks given away each day, and each day the duck assortment changed. AND the kids were allowed to wear their duck keychains to school on a lanyard during the entire two week period of the fundraiser.
Suddenly my kids were pestering relentlessly: “Today was the cupcake rubber duck and they only have ten of those! Tomorrow they’ll have the vampire rubber duck! I really want the camo rubber duck most of all and maybe they’ll have that on Thursday! Pleeeease mom, can’t we go selling around the neighborhood?”
No. No you may not. Because I don’t think I’m too good to do any job except one: door-to-door peddler. It is not happening. And I sure as heck am not about to buy the stupid junk in that catalog. No way will I write a check for a tacky resin plaque that says “Dance like no one is watching”, or a polarfleece throw with my dog’s breed embroidered on it. And this means that my children will be the only ones with no rubber ducks hanging from their little necks, it appears.
So that was last year. This year I thought I would outsmart the school and buy my own assortment of rubber ducks and beat them at their own game. I found them for less than 25¢ a piece online! Oooh, I was so excited for this.
The kids came home last week waving their fundraising packets. “Mom, mom, this is so great!” they exclaimed as they dumped their backpacks in the entry hall. “This year they have rubber frog keychains instead!”
Curses! Foiled again!