Hi parents, thank you for coming to Back-To-School night. We have lots of activities planned for Otter Valley Elementary this year. Unfortunately, all of those activities require volunteers. Lots of them.
Martha, I see Instagram posts all the time of your delicious pecan blondies and seasonal focaccias. Can I count on you to bring something to the bake sale in a couple of weeks? You’re always baking anyway, what's one more batch of brownies? What about 12 extra batches?
Great!
I need some people for the book fair. Evan? I know you love books. You have that bookcase of rare first editions in your den. I saw it at your house. I was at the dinner party you had a few months ago. You don’t remember me being there? Well, I was. How else would I have seen the bookcase? Do you think I pace around your attic until you and your wife finish Love Island and go to sleep, then I walk around your house, looking at your bookcase and using the nice, lemon verbena hand soap you have in the downstairs bathroom? It’s just like you tell your wife, those aren’t footsteps she hears on the ceiling, they are probably just raccoons on the roof.
Don, maybe you could help organize the Fun-Run Fundraiser? We’re having the Fun Run on a Tuesday at 11:00 AM this year. I know you’re home while your wife works on Tuesdays at 11 right? You’re not meeting any other parents at the motel around that time every week right? Ok, terrific, I’ll sign you up.
Cathy, I know the same is true for you about Tuesdays at 11 right? You’re definitely at home? Perfect.
We need some help lining the fields before soccer games. We offer community service hours if anyone has a high schooler that needs hours for Beta Club, or to fulfill court-mandated orders, Todd.
My man Luke, can I jot you down to do a trunk for Trunk-or-Treat? Your trunk is huge and it’s really easy to open because the latch doesn’t close all the way. Boy, there’s enough space back there for a really cool Jurassic-Park-themed trunk or, it could probably fit two or three rabid possums dumped in there on a night when you’re not expecting it.
The fall festival is a huge fundraiser for us and right now the sign-up sheet is blank. It would be a real shame if we had to cancel it and then had to find a different way to meet our yearly fundraising goals. Anna, can I put you down to volunteer or do you have someone coming over to your house that day to help you change the combination on the big safe in your basement so that the combination is no longer your oldest daughter’s birth year, your birth month, then your youngest daughter’s birth year?
Kevin, you want to go ahead and fill up my last spot as a chaperone for the zoo field trip? I noticed you haven’t signed up for anything yet. That’s fine, I get it, you’re busy. Your job has crazy hours. Hours so crazy that you’ve never had time to have anyone fix your home alarm system. You have those yard signs saying you have a security system, but it doesn’t actually work, right? You’re just hoping the signs themselves will deter a potential intruder. I know your job must have a busy schedule because you’ve also never had time to replace those flimsy, single-pane windows that are really easy to quietly pry open. You’d have to take a whole day of PTO to get new windows installed and you just don’t have that kind of time. Oh, but you have that big German Shepherd so the alarm system and windows shouldn’t matter. That big dog will protect you. The dog named Max? Who really loves the milk bones I’ve been giving him over the past four months in an effort to build a relationship and gain his trust? If it were me and I had a head that was so susceptible to being whacked with a sack full of nickels while I slept I would try to make my schedule a little more flexible so I could get my windows replaced or volunteer to chaperone the fifth grade’s day at the zoo.
But that's just me.
Wow, thank you parents! We at Otter Valley Elementary are truly moved by your unprompted generosity. Now, if you look in the folder on your child’s desk, I have reviewed each of your tax returns and identified how much you should be donating during next week’s Read-A-Thon.