Rewarding?

Last week, the kids came home from school with flyers for a special "PTA gives Back" night. It was billed as a reward for the kids. There was a local "tween" band that would be playing a concert and ice cream. You had to return a slip to reserve your space because "seating was limited."

Zoe and Lucy were excited; the promise of fun music and ice cream sounded great to them. Friday night rolled around. I desperately needed to go grocery shopping, but I had promised the girls we could go, so we managed another day of weird canned goods and off we went.

The cafeteria was hot.

There were four girls sitting on folding chairs next to their guitar teacher on the stage with one measely plug-in amplifier. The girls had made a half-hearted attempt at looking like pop stars, what with their skinny jeans and weird hat-headbands. The guitar teacher did not attempt to look like a rock star. That was wise, she couldn't have pulled it off.

The children in attendance were expected to sit quietly at their tables and strain to hear the "band" play. What was billed as a concert was more like a beginning guitar recital. And they invited an entire elementary school, so that the perfomers' dads would have someone to shush and call disrespectful.

Every few minutes, a PTA representative would stand and screech at those of us in attendance to be respectful. I don't think anyone was being disrespectful except maybe the band, who clearly didn't respect OUR EARS.


I can't figure out how anyone thought this was a good idea, and how they justified marketing this as a reward. This was not rewarding. At. All.

The bright spot of my evening (aside from returning home) was that I saw a man with the longest comb-over ever. It started just above his left ear and he managed to cover the entire top of his head and had long hair covering his right ear. It almost made me wish for a fancy phone so I could document his efforts.