Ummm yeah I've been a major slacker as far as this blog is concerned. Gotta improve on that!!
I hate to be a negative nelly but that's what I'm feeling like right now. We just got home from the annual Family Fun Night at my son's elementary school, which is usually a BLAST. But this year...IT TOTALLY SUCKED (and I wasn't the only one who thought so). By the end of the evening, not only was I disappointed, I was downright pissed. Here's a few reasons why:
1. There's a silent auction...each classroom puts together a theme basket, plus lots of local businesses donate stuff. In the past this has been a huge success, with so many bids on most items that both sides of the bidding sheets were filled - it raised a lot of money for the school. This year they decided to implement minimum bids, and the minimums were completely outrageous! With a little less than an hour to go, approximately 1/3 of the items had NO bids at all and most other items had just a handful of bids. To me that's stupid. All the stuff was donated, so ANY money made is a profit for the school. But if there is no bids at all, that means the school doesn't make anything, and they're stuck with the stuff. Stupid I say, stupid.
2. They eliminated at least half the games, which resulted in 1/2 hour + wait times to play the few games they did have. LOTS of unhappy, impatient, crying little kids. (It didn't help that a whole lotta kids ran wild all night and cut in line and wouldn't listen when told to go to the back - the people running the games just let them do it.) And, had I known there were hardly any games, I wouldn't have bought $50 worth of tickets!! By the end of the night we still had about $30 in tickets left that got wasted. In the past, if you had tickets left at the end you could buy candy/pizza/dilly bars to take home so the tickets weren't wasted. This year they shut down the cafeteria an hour before close with no notice, and they kept all the leftover stuff rather than sell it. OK fine...I was annoyed but whatever. What REALLY pissed me off though was there were numerous signs saying no refunds on tickets (totally understandable), but I watched left and right as friends and family of the people running the ticket booths got *their* money back. GRRRRRRRRR. After watching 10 or so of these refunds take place I myself inquired about getting half of my money back. The lady said "Nope but thanks for the donation!" This was the same lady who 2 hours earlier was kissing my butt - telling me I was her biggest sale of the night. Whatevah.
3. They also did away with the face painting, moonwalk, and the very popular "stuffed animal cake walk". The cake walk ticked me off because a month ago I donated a huge bin full of new beanie babies JUST for this purpose (they asked in their newsletter, and I delivered). What in the heck did they do with the beanie babies I wonder?? Hmmmmm.
4. The prizes were a joke. In the past they'd order cool prize assortments so kids could pick their prizes. AND there was always consolation prizes too. Not this year! This year the prizes were little stuffed zebras, bouncy balls, and tattoos. That's it. NO variety whatsoever. And NO consolation prizes. Guess how many tears were shed over that. Huh.
5. In the cafeteria they had the walls plastered with pictures of hamburgers, french fries, cotton candy, and ice cream sundaes. But they weren't selling ANY of those items! The choices were hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, lemonade, and coffee (and oddly enough there were NO pictures of *those* items). Ever try explaining to a 4 year old that there IS NO french fries or ice cream no matter *what* all the signs say? Ugh. And what happened to all the great food choices in the past?
6. This year they decided not to have open gym, instead they had bingo in the gym. OK great. And the adult prizes were AWESOME!! But all the blatant cheating MADE ME SICK. Not only were lots of adults cheating, they were encouraging their kids to do so as well!! Seriously I walked away...I couldn't stand it. (and guess what the kids' prizes were? If you guessed stuffed zebras and bouncy balls you win!!)
7. More of the cheating....the people running the games made sure their friends and family won over and over. Everyone else....too bad so sad. Right before we left I had "words" with the lady overseeing the baked items for the real cake walk. My son finally won and when he went to collect she didn't realize I was standing there and she tried telling him he could choose from an oatmeal cream pie or a swiss cake roll (not a box of them, a single one). She said the packages of muffins, cookies, cakes, etc. from the local bakery were off limits. I DON'T THINK SO!!!!!! I stepped in and asked her why - she got all red in the face and said "Oh I thought he won a bunch of times already." to which I replied "Ummm...no....all he has in his hands are 3 stuffed zebras and 2 bouncy balls. He's been trying to win cookies all night!" I know she felt like an ass but at this point I was fed up with the whole ordeal and frankly I didn't give a damn. We got our cookies! hehe
That pretty much sums it up. I feel like writing a letter to the PTA and asking them if they need help pulling their heads out of their asses, because this whole event was a huge flop as far as I'm concerned. I can honestly say that I think I could have organized it better all by myself. On the other hand though, I know I sound stupid for bitching about it at all when I didn't participate in the planning this time (due to my illness this past year). And overall if it made money for the school that's a good thing (yes I know I complained about my leftover tickets but if everything else had been done right I wouldn't have minded.) Really though, I can't stop wondering how an entire team of moms could make such a huge mess of the biggest event of the year.
Vent over now. Lemme know if you need any stuffed zebras. :P
