Class Mom by Laurie Gelman
To: Parents
From: JDixon
Date: 9/4
Subject: Getting to know me—your new class mom
Hello, parents of Miss Ward’s kindergarten class!
My name is Jennifer Dixon and I have “volunteered” to be your class mom for this coming year. Since this is a thankless job, don’t expect warm fuzzy emails like you probably got in preschool. Wake up! You’re in kindergarten on the mean streets of William H. Taft Elementary School, and it’s time to face a few facts. The main one is that I’m in charge and I have some strong suggestions to make this an easy year for all of us, especially me.
First and foremost, read the school’s @#$%& weekly email! It may seem boring, but it actually gives good information and keeps me from having to answer questions like “When is curriculum night?” (See below, by the way, for the answer to that one.)
Second, when I ask for something, volunteer! If I say we need doughnuts, say, “How many?” not “Can I bring cups?” I don’t want to have to assign stuff, so please be among the first to email me back. I will be testing you on this very soon because curriculum night is … (see below).
And finally, if there is an event … show up! They may seem dull and tedious but let’s never forget we are here to build a community. It can’t just be the same five people showing up, because they’ll get sick of each other.
Important Dates to Commit to Memory
My Birthday: April 18. No gifts necessary, but I do enjoy Starbucks.
Curriculum Night: Tuesday, September 27—6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
This will be your first chance to see the effects of alcohol on your fellow parents. I’ll be asking for refreshment contributions sometime next week.
Parent Dialogue Coffee—October 7—Location: The Lounge—no idea what the “dialogue” is, but don’t be surprised if it’s about coffee.
Parent Social, K–6th Grades: January 18—6 to 8 p.m.—Location: Cafeteria. It’s been my experience that these are a bit awkward, kind of like a 7th-grade dance. Go at your own risk.
Miss Ward has also requested that you drop off a photo of your child before the first day of school. Let me repeat that … before the first day of school. I’m not sure, but I think she plans to use them in some sort of Wiccan ritual to “cleanse” the classroom.
That’s it for now.
Any questions?
Jennifer
P.S.: By the way, if any of you consider yourselves “crafty,” let me know. This year all gifts for the teacher have to be homemade, so for this and only this, I am open to suggestions.
* * *
1
I click Send on my laptop, sit back in my chair, and grimace.
“Well, that should give them something to think about,” I say to absolutely no one.
Rubbing my tired eyes, I wonder for the fiftieth time that day why I ever agreed to be a class mom again.
My first instinct had been the right one.
“Absofuckinglutely NOT,” I told Nina Grandish when she asked me. Nina is the reigning high priestess of the school’s PTA. In spite of that, she is my best friend. “It’s the worst job I’ve had since I worked customer service at Allstate.”
“Please!” she begged. “I really need you.”
“Nope. I don’t have time.”
“Yes, you do. Vivs and Laura have already gone back to school.”
“I’m starting my mud-run training.”
“That’s unlikely,” Nina scoffed.
“I’m thinking of getting a dog for Max and I’ll be busy with that.”
“No, you’re not. You hate dogs. Come on! Think of all the experience you bring to the job.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me how much older I am than all the other parents.”
“Not older,” Nina cooed, “wiser.”
And I am, by almost fifteen years. The nineties were a bit of a lost decade for me. After a blistering four years at the University of Kansas (Go, Jayhawks!) I found myself with a super-useful degree in art history and not a chance in hell of finding a job with it. So, I decided to hit the road and see a bit of the world. Some people go to Paris to look at great art; some go to Rome to look at great architecture. Me? I went to Amsterdam to see a great band. INXS was just starting to ride their wave of international success, thanks to the album X. Luckily for me, they weren’t so famous that they would only date supermodels. I got picked out of the audience thanks in part to the “no bra” phase I was going through, and lo and behold I ended up a groupie.
You know that Cameron Crowe movie Almost Famous, where the girls are called Band-Aids and they travel with the band and keep the musicians’, um, morale up? It was kind of like that but not nearly as glamorous. I was with INXS for a little over a year, then moved on to a folksinger named Greg Brown. Yeah, I had never heard of him either, but he could certainly draw a crowd, albeit an unwashed one. In those three years away, I somehow ended up with two kids, one of whom may or may not have been fathered by Michael Hutchence. Thanks to his untimely death in 1997, poor Vivs may never know. But Laura’s sperm donor was most definitely Greg Brown’s banjo player. I’m 65 percent sure.
To quote the poet Steve Perry of Journey, “They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family.” So I took my two kids from two different fathers and made my way home to Kansas City.
Actually, by that time my parents had fulfilled a lifelong dream and moved to Overland Park, which is a fancy suburb of KC. I was sad that I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to our old house, but thrilled that I had such a nice place to bring Vivs and Laura home to.
Let’s just say I had a bucket load of explaining to do to Kay and Ray Howard, my extremely Catholic parents, when I landed on their swank new doorstep with Laura and Vivs both still in diapers. My mother’s face went from confused to horrified to delighted so quickly that I thought she was having a stroke.