I love having a child in elementary school and getting to do all of the “mom” things for my child and his school.  If you need some party supplies give me a call and they’re on the way.  If you need me to cut, trace, color and even glue something (or 22 somethings) send them home and I’ll get the job done.  I’m even the brown-nosing parent that sends a special gift for the teacher on EVERY holiday, official and un-official (1st Day of School, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, Last Day of School, etc.).  But there is one infamous school activity that I dread with all of my being!  The yearly PTA fundraiser!

I do not enjoy selling anything and let’s just get it straight – the parent does do all the selling!  I finally realized after trying to convince myself for years that I could sell things that this was a lie straight from the pit of hell and I should never try again!    Yes folks I have been a consultant/annoying salesperson for every network marketing company out there.  It all started with Mary Kay, then Homemade Gourmet, Arbonne, Pampered Chef, some vitamin company that I can’t even remember the name of, and Creative Memories!  I think people were making fun of me every time I told them I was representing a new company!  They were probably just “blessing my heart”, right?  Anyways, so this is probably the root of my hatred for fundraisers.  Don’t get me wrong, I know we need to raise some funds but do we have to sell stuff?  I don’t need 20 boxes of cookie dough in my freezer for another year until I throw it out next year and buy 20 more boxes.  Who really eats that many cookies?  And the sneaky tricky part that I learned from the veteran Mom’s last year is that if your kid doesn’t sell enough he/she is left in the classroom doing work with the teacher while the other 95% of the class goes to the prize party in the gym with the bounce houses.  Now what kind of parent would I be if I let this happen!  So, year after year, we will purchase pounds of cookie dough so that our children can have one glorious afternoon (30 minutes) partying it up at the bounce house in the gym.  Why can’t they mark-up something useful like toilet paper and sell that for a fundraiser?  Who could say “no, they don’t need any” or “they’re on a diet” about toilet paper?  Eventually, when all four of our kids are in school we will have to take out an annual loan to support the PTA’s annual fundraiser!  Yikes!  And please don’t get me wrong.  I love to give and to give generously.  I just don’t want a bunch of dough (cookie dough that is) in return.  So, maybe they should just let you buy a ticket to the bounce house party instead!  That’s it!  I’m glad I solved this problem while typing!  Now, I just have to convince all of the other gung-ho parents that keep sending their children to my door that we must stop the cookie dough madness!

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