26 May 2013
Basically what happens is this.
First, you help the children to bake cookies or cakes to sell at school. Since this is supposed to be their work, you more or less leave them to it, which means that as well as the standard ingredients, the cakes have snot and hair and bits of dog food and god knows what else in them. (Once you’ve been around the block a few times you know NEVER to buy anyone else’s cakes at these events).
Next, you provide the school with bits and bobs: glass jars, empty boxes, plant pots and the like. Over the following weeks your precious offspring convert them into various “useful” objects during their arts and crafts lessons.
In the fullness of time you are invited to a School Fair, where you can purchase these beautifully crafted gifts and cakes, thus raising money for the school and bringing a smile to your little one’s face. It’s bound to work, and good on the schools for thinking of it. Who can resist a child or grandchild tugging at their leg, pleading face turned towards them, urging them to buy each lovingly crafted gift in case someone else’s mummy does it first.
And so it was that I turned up at my boy’s school, to just such an event, cash at the ready. First up was the cake stand where I bought back the biscuits we had made. I am very happy to support the school financially, but I draw the line at ingesting other people’s dribble.
Next up was a book mark stall. My son had collected (and very possibly chewed) various bits of flower and stuck them to some card. I like to read, and it’s a snip at 20p. So far so good.
Next is the seed stall. He’s collected some beetroot seeds and made a little packet for them and drawn pictures of beetroots and even spelt it properly. And since I like gardening, this is something I would definitely use. It’s a steal at 35p and I get to marvel at his very neat handwriting.
And, at last, the Piece de Resistance. The Grand Finale. The climax of the big fundraising sale: The Place Mat. This has been produced using digital shapes on a computer programme, and has then been printed out and laminated. Quite high tech for five year olds; I am impressed. It’s the big money number at 50p, and it’s face down on the table, partly so that we can see whose is whose (the names are on the back) and partly for the Big Reveal. The “Ta Daaaaaa!” moment when your child’s design genius is finally unleashed.
And here it is, flipped over with pride and excitement by my five year old boy, in front of a teacher and lots of parents.
The world divides into people who think this is a slightly crappy bit of art work, and people who now cannot breathe for laughing at my son presenting me with a laminated penis mat. At school. Surrounded by kids. And parents. And teachers.
I swear I laughed so hard a tiny bit of wee came out.
