Got whine?

Close your eyes and picture this.....200 people, high school cafeteria, 5:30-7:00pm, cheap spaghetti, no alcohol, 125 of the people less than the age of 12, no alcohol, hot and the tension rising as the clock nears 7. Welcome to the annual PTA spaghetti supper. Our PTA puts on this great fundraiser every year. You pay for spaghetti and get to have flashbacks to your own school days as you go through the cafeteria line. Yes, plastic trays and square milks and all. Then you buy raffle tickets and put your name into little bags in front of 24 different baskets. The baskets range from a baby basket, to a beach basket, to an office basket, to a gourmet basket to a book nook basket. There were 24 baskets there tonight from the 24, Pre-K thru 6th grade classrooms. The parents in the each classroom were responsible for sending in something related to the classroom theme. The average cost of these baskets were probably between 100-200 dollars. Every child there wants to win a basket. Read as "EVERY CHILD KNOWS HE/SHE WILL WIN A BASKET FOR SURE! Not the case in the real world. The principal draws the names and announces them. Tonight, he actually had a police officer draw the tickets while he announced the names. I think the principal was nervous of the mutiny he felt after last year's spaghetti supper. The kids blame the person who picks the ticket if they are not the winner.

So naturally, DH is out fishing, so I get to take the girls tonight. I tried to not remind them of it, but my parents came for dinner last night and said, "So, are you excited for the spaghetti dinner tomorrow night?!". Super, where were they tonight? Sitting on their couch watching bad tv and drinking ALCOHOL. Me? I was at the spag. supper with my girls. They ate spaghetti, I ate their salad that looked like weeds. They are not crazy about weed salad. Then there was the 45 minutes inbetween dinner and the actual drawings. This is when the parents sit and yell at each other in the loud caf. while their kids run circles around the tables, eat chocolate brownies and then chase their friends. The main statements from the parents tonight were, "I so wanted to bring a flask with some wine in it, but figuring this was a school, I thought better of it", "I can't wait to leave here having not won anything for the _ year in a row and my kids crying", and "could we draw the tickets before my headache turns into a migraine?".

K was hot to trot (no pun intended) on winning the "horse basket". Each year she wants to win this thing and I explain that we have the actual horses, do we need the horse stuff? and she always puts all her raffle tickets in this one bag. B wants the "book nook" basket not because it has lots of books, but because it has a really cool loungy type chair that comes with it. So the girls put in their raffle tickets and I put in mine. I put one in each of their favorites and then the ones I actually wanted to win. Who wins tonight? Me. The Book Nook basket. For B.

She is snuggled in her chair under her fleece blanket at the moment, I am typing with my glass of wine and K is snuggled on the couch. No tears from this family tonight, but we were only a ticket away from tears and anger towards their peers! All I can say is "yay, wine" and "yay, the powers that be that made my night a success instead of a disaster".