The Noive!

We all survived, and that's all I can really report at this moment. I'm exhausted, my back hurts, my feet are aching, and I'm relieved it's over. One child was injured on an obstacle course, but other than that, nobody seems to have had any pressing distresses.

Everyone worked so hard and so wonderfully. Sure there was a shortage of people; there always is. But my friends knocked themselves out to make this happen. I'm so grateful. There was only one person that got my back up: the chair from last year.

Yes, the woman who spent maybe one whole hour giving me her notes about the carnival (orally, of course, because she didn't have a thing written down) and committed to do four things and did NONE of them. The woman who was never available for questions. The woman who never returned phone calls or e-mails. The woman who had exactly NOTHING to do with the carnival. The woman who I defended whenever everyone asked by reporting "She's sooooo busy right now, we'll have to work it out on our own."

She got in my face about how a parent was working a booth. After she got in the parent's face. Oh yes she did. The parent, I might add, who worked three shifts because not one other person from our class deigned to work that booth and she didn't want to abandon it. Over the number of prize tickets she was giving out, when the woman was following the rules of the game. Not that there was anyone who stepped up and TOOK OVER that area so these things wouldn't happen! There was me, and about eight dedicated PTA moms who were up at school every day to make sure things were getting done. Where was the former chair if it mattered so much to her?

How I longed to rip her open in front of everyone! When she wanted to argue about it, I told her "I don't have time to worry about it right now." And I didn't. For Pete's sake, I was on my feet putting out fires all night! Anywhere I went I had seven people needing me to solve their problems (food shortages, drink deliveries not materializing, ticket shortages, broken dunking booths, parking blockages, shifts not covered, you know, the usual) and this presumptuous wench had the gall to try to get me to fix a small ticket problem. So then she's in my face saying "I'm a grown woman; don't talk to me like I was a child."

Watch Fish simmer.

I pulled her aside, told her there wasn't anyone available to go around making a change, and that we would just have to deal with it.

I wanted to roast her. But I kept remembering how the principal had praised me for my optimism. How so many people had said how cool and collected I was, even when there were a hundred things to attend to. How the PTA president said it was a completely different mood this year; no panic, no stress, no craziness.

And I realized that to the people that count, it's already obvious. They've taken my measure, and they don't even bother to compare me with the former chair. She's irrelevant, and that speaks for me enough.