The Food Drive… Part 1

Did I ever tell you the story about the food drive?  I don’t think I did.  Well, at least not the WHOLE STORY.  🙂 It has been over a year since the event occurred… and it still brings a twisted smile to my face every time I think about it.  I can’t help it. I am amused by the whole thing.  It was a complete adrenaline rush from start to finish.  All 35 minutes of it.

See the lady in the photo above?  Does she look like your average, sneaky, back stabbing housewife living in high maintenance suburbia to you?  Well, the frosted hair, nerd glasses and track jacket should have been your first clue.  Simply because there isn’t a Stepford wife in suburbia who doesn’t own a black track jacket with a few tricks up its sleeves.

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Last year, during the height of my drug induced (coupon crack) coupon clipping extravaganza, Monkey Boy comes home and tells me his school is having a food drive. “Cool” I thought, “You should try to win it.”  So The Boy and I came up with a plan.  He typed up a little note and taped it to plastic grocery bags and went around the neighborhood and tied the bags to all the doors.

The note said something along the lines of “Hello my name is Monkey Boy, my school is having a food drive next week and I’m hoping you’ll donate a few cans for our local food bank. Yada Yada Yada, I’ll pick up the bags on Sunday.” Signed, Monkey Boy.

So on Sunday Monkey Boy rode his bike around the neighborhood collecting the bags our generous neighbors had filled with food.

I don’t remember exactly how many cans/items he had collected from our neighborhood, but I do remember it was in the hundreds.

When day 1 of the classroom food drive competition rolled around, Monkey Boy brought in a few bags.  We had strategized early on and came to the conclusion that it was best not to bring in all the bags of food on the first day.  So each day he would grab a few bags he had collected from the neighbors until there were no more.

At that point it was moms (read: Mavis’) turn to start pulling non perishables from her coupon crack filled shelves to contribute. By the morning of the last day of the food drive the boy had brought in almost 800 items and his class was in the lead.  We thought his class was a total shoo-in for first place.

Until, I received a phone call 30 minutes prior to school letting out for the day.

A friend of mine who happens to be a teacher at my son’s school called with urgency in her voice.  It was as if it was a matter of life or death.

I NEED YOU TO DO ME A HUGE FAVOR.

What?

Mr. Blankety Blanks class has inched ahead in the food drive competition… I am 30 cans behind.  The donation deadline is 30 minutes from now. Is there anyway possible you can bring in about 50 food items and donate them to my class.

YES!!! Of course. I’ll help.  No problem.  I’ll be right there.

I quickly gathered up the requested food for my teacher friend.  I tossed the box into my car and speed down the road.This is so exciting I thought, I love it when competitions come down to the wire like this… I hope she wins!!!

And then it hit me.

My teacher friend was not my sons home room teacher.  Nor was Mr. Blankety Blank.

That meant…

My sons class was no longer in the lead… They were not even in 2nd place.

Hmm…