Wednesday, September 9, 2009

further proof that we are no longer in kzoo

Yesterday morning, as I was dropping Tony off at school, we saw this parked out in front of the school.

I thought "Wow! It must be some kids birthday or something."

Definitely don't see a Hummer limo in Kalamazoo (maybe a regular limo but not a Hummer). Maybe it's not that big of a deal.


But then Tony got in the car after school and told me more about the limo.

btw, that's the whole reason I drive him to and from school--I get the BEST stories in the car right after school. I found if I don't pick them up all I get is this....

Me: "how was school today?"

My Kids: "grunt"

end of conversation.
Not very exciting.
But put them in the car with all that just-out-of-school-energy, and everyone facing forward and not having to make eye contact and they will talk non stop. Try it at home, I'm not making this stuff up.

So anywho. Tony says the limo was a promo for school magazine sales. The kid that sells the most gets to choose from a variety of prizes and one of the options is a limo ride. Tony says that they also slip cash into the kids lockers for turning in your sales slips on time ect. ect.

Now that is definitely different from Kalamazoo! Back home if you sold junk (we didn't sell magazines we sold junk like wrapping paper and exorbitantly priced cashews) you get some lame "prize" that usually broke before you left school that day. Top prize was a piece of junk stereo or something.

Nae won top prize once. She got to stand in one of those plastic booth thingies and dollar bills flew all over the place and she got to grab as much as she could.

I think she got 22 bucks (she was pretty little).

I think I spent 200 bucks in gas driving her around to sell all that junk and then deliver it. That's not taking into account the countless hours trying to figure out who bought what (thanks to people who didn't put their address or phone number down--yeah it was before all the "don't sell to strangers" that they tell you now a days--so that no one gets sued when your kid gets abducted by some freak who lives in your neighborhood that you didn't know was a freak, blah. blah. blah.) I could have worked an extra shift at the hospital and donated it all and saved myself a huge hassle.

I guess it must be harder to motivate these kids around here.

Tony says he doesn't even want to try selling magazines.
I guess he doesn't need the cash or the limo (he has me and my cool car-yeah that must be it!).

Maybe we are fitting in better than I thought.
but not in a good way. Ugghhh!

6 comments:

Pam said...

I despise these school fundraisers that try to entice your kids to bother your friends and family to buy a bunch of overpriced junk they don't need or want. What a crock! I'd much rather just write a donation check to the school and be done with it. Thankfully, both of my girls are in HS this year and all the fundraiser frenzy is just a bad memory. OK, sorry for the rant. This is one of my pet peeves.

Martinis or Diaper Genies? said...

school is so different now! I feel ancient.

Kim said...

Lake Center used to give a limo ride to the top students in their fundraiser. Not a hummer though...I don't think those were around 10 years ago. The kids even got to go to lunch to McDonalds in it. It was a big thing for elementary. We never participated too much, as you said..too much work for the parents.

Jessica said...

Seriously?! Cash in their lockers?!?! That's CRAZY!

I hate those fundraiser things. The cookie dough ones are pretty divine, though.........

Unknown said...

I still think the hummer limos look very bizarre, not sure why but they strike me as odd.
T.

Deborah said...

My kids had a limo ride to the Pizzeria about 1/4 mile down the street.. Fundraisers are the worst and they start the first week of school! I was the fundraiser queen when the kids were young..now they don't even tell me about them anymore!!