The Most Writing-est Time Of The Year

Yep, it's that time of year again - National Blog Posting Month - NaBloPoMo - which happens every November. Bloggers with too much free time, oodles to say, and enough masochism to last the distance  pledge to blog every single day throughout the entire month of November. Since I quite proudly fit into all those categories, I'll be joining in this madness for the FIFTH year in a row - here's hoping I make it through the month without too many filler posts, with my sanity mostly intact, and having gained something other than more kilos from the experience.

Today I'm going to share a story about my run in with the SSOTH Parent's Committee. For those relatively new to this blog, SSOTH stands for Shmancy School On The Hill, which is the horrendously expensive private school that DH and I sweat actual blood and tears to afford to send our kids to. Why we choose to send them there is a whole 'nother story, but suffice it to say someday these kids had better put me in a five star retirement home.

The PA sent out a request for volunteers for an upcoming Sports Day. Sports Day, so you know, is held on a public holiday and it's considered a compulsory school day. I'm not sure how they get away with that, but the end result is a bunch of bored parents (except those annoying ones yelling from the sidelines looking like they give a shit) and a bunch of sweaty kids all covered in cheap, nasty face paint which stains all their (expensive) uniforms and gives most of them a face rash.

I digress. Me being a volunteering sort, I replied that I'd be happy to help. If nothing else it alleviates the boredome if I get to look like I'm being helpful, when in fact I'm standing there making snide, unfair judgements about the well manicured, eyelash-curled, bling-wearing, high-heel wearing parents who are yelling from the sidelines.

I got no response to my email for several days, and then an email went out which said,

"Thank you very much for volunteering to help out at this year’s Parents’ Association Sports Day BBQ. Before I prepare a roster I would like to know if any of your husbands or partners are available to actually BBQ the sausages. I know all you women are more than capable but traditionally the men toast the snags! (it’s also nice male bonding time :))."

By no stretch of the imagination would I call myself a feminist, but this has to be one of the most ridiculous emails I've seen in a long while. Yes, she was kidding - but it was a pretty ill conceived joke, and she really belaboured the point, didn't she?. I wanted to fire off a really long missive ...but instead I slept on it for a day, and then came up with this reply - which I think you will agree gets my point across nicely:

"I asked my husband if he wanted to help and he said he'd prefer I was pregnant, barefoot, and tied to the kitchen sink - which apparently is what women "do traditionally" and where we bond with one another.

I actually find this email incredibly offensive. Given that the parent's association asked for volunteers, and you now have a list of people who are willing to help, I would think it's more important to make sure the job is getting done than worry about what is men's work and what is women's work."

HER reply to that was suitably pissed off and feather-ruffled. She (wrongly) pointed out that her husband was currently the ONLY volunteer for the job (how that's possible when she emailed a whole group of volunteers is beyond me) and that last year, the poor baby had to BBQ the sausages with two helpers for 4 hours and he found this very, very hard to do.

Let's think about this. 3 adult males found turning sausages for 4 hours really, really hard and therefore we need to make sure we only recruit big, strong men to help them this year.

Excuse me while I guffaw and then throw up.

Needless to say I don't think my nomination for Parents' Association President is going to be forthcoming anytime soon...