Hi, My name is Cassie, and I am a sucker for kids selling lame things for school! I am here to get help and learn how to Just Say No!
So I think my problem stems from the many years of having to sell wrapping paper and candy for school and for soccer team fundraisers. I remember how I "hated with a passion" going from door to door praying that someone would buy it and feeling utterly rejected when they told me no. Yes there was one year that my entire neighborhood turned me down and I had barely been able to hold back the tears after the last house rejected me. I was about to go home when I decided to walk down The Selly's driveway in hopes that she wouldn't remember that she had just bought from my last soccer fundraiser six months prior!
To my relief sweet Mrs. Selly kindly invited me in and ordered one more thing from me. To this day I still love her for that and the fact that she never, ever, not once rejected me when I was selling things for a good (or lame) cause.
Now here I am ten or more years later and every time the neighborhood girls knock on the door doing a volleyball fundraiser I buy something from them. Now there is nothing wrong with this and there hasn't been a problem in the past two years as they only come every few months. But yesterday it got out of hand.
My doorbell rang shortly after the middle school bus dropped kids off at home. There before me was not one but two middle school children (friends mind you, not from the same family) selling cookie dough so their school could get a new roof and electronic billboard. They both had order forms and both wanted me to buy. I didn't want to pick one over the other so I ended up buying one box of cookie dough from each of them (which is ridiculously over priced for cookie dough and doesn't taste nearly as good as the dough we make ourselves)! Then during dinner our doorbell rings again and Dan answers saying it's for me. This time it is our darling neighbor girl across the street who is rather shy and I've become good friends with. I didn't have the heart to reject her so when she came selling cookie dough for the same middle school I bought one from her as well!
I sat back down at the table and started laughing. Feeling a little embarrassed I told Dan how I had just bought our third box of cookie dough for the day. He was shocked and said, "Why didn't you just tell them you didn't want any?" "Because, I remember how hard it is to go door to door doing that and I didn't want to hurt their feelings" I said. "Well then why don't you just tell them that you already bought it from someone else?" Dan had a very good point and I resolved that if anyone else rings the doorbell selling cookie dough I would say that, but for now we will just have to use the three boxes of cookie dough as visiting and home teaching treats. "Three, don't you mean Four?!" he said. Oh yeah, a few weeks ago the girls volleyball was selling cookie dough and I bought one from one of the Young Women down the street. I guess all of our neighbors will be getting cookies for Christmas this year!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Adventures of Woofy: The Three Amigos minus one . . . let's make that two!
It has been a busy summer and I have been a super slacker at recording it for posterity. After going over a month without an entry you'd think people would ask to see pictures of the kids or ask what we've been up to this summer, but no. . . more people(who follow our blog that is) have asked about the latest happenings of Woofy the fish!
So if it's Woofy you want, it's Woofy you get. A few days after Dog Dog died we just so happened to have Lydia's preschool playgroup at the Pet Store. Naturally, Lydia remembered how lonely Woofy must be and begged for us to buy him some new friends (if only making friends were that easy in real life)! This time I was wiser and bought three of the gold fish in the "six for a dollar" tank. They were each very distinct looking and Lydia named each one. The biggest had an orange strip down the back and she named him Tiger (naturally). The middle sized one had a little orange dot on his tail and she named him Teeny (his name has since changed to Tiny). The smallest one was sort of an ugly grey color and she named him Dubba (that's right, Dubba)!
Woofy seemed to get along fine with his new friends and Lydia giggled as she watched the four of them swim around and kept asking, "Do you like your new friends Woofy?" She would then proceed to introduce him to each one and repeated this three or four times. I guess she wanted to make sure that Woofy wouldn't get his new friends mixed up. So life was uneventful for a few days and Woofy and the Three Amigos seemed to be rather happy in their little bowl. Then it happened.
We went to church the next Sunday and in a mad dash to get out the door on time we somehow forgot to feed them. We came home to the Three Amigos swimming around a dead floating WOOFY! It was a very sad sight and when we very somberly called Lydia into the kitchen and broke the news gently she was sad for a moment and then said, "Can I flush him?" Well, we're glad she understands the way of the fishy world!
A week later we went to church and came home to find Dubba dead in the bowl. Honestly, what is going on here. I looked at Tiger and Tiny and thought "and then there were none!" Good luck guys, may the best fish win! This time Lydia asked to hold Dubba before she flushed him! We actually went out of town quite a bit the following two weeks and even had two different neighbors fish sit for us. They seemed to do a much better job and after we came home the last time Lydia told me, "Wow Mom our neighbors are good at watching the fish. They never die for them. They only die when we have them!" Yes Lydia, I think you are on to something. Either that or the first three were just wimpy. Tiger and Tiny are still swimming away and just might be competing for the title of longest living fish in the Riding home!
So if it's Woofy you want, it's Woofy you get. A few days after Dog Dog died we just so happened to have Lydia's preschool playgroup at the Pet Store. Naturally, Lydia remembered how lonely Woofy must be and begged for us to buy him some new friends (if only making friends were that easy in real life)! This time I was wiser and bought three of the gold fish in the "six for a dollar" tank. They were each very distinct looking and Lydia named each one. The biggest had an orange strip down the back and she named him Tiger (naturally). The middle sized one had a little orange dot on his tail and she named him Teeny (his name has since changed to Tiny). The smallest one was sort of an ugly grey color and she named him Dubba (that's right, Dubba)!
Woofy seemed to get along fine with his new friends and Lydia giggled as she watched the four of them swim around and kept asking, "Do you like your new friends Woofy?" She would then proceed to introduce him to each one and repeated this three or four times. I guess she wanted to make sure that Woofy wouldn't get his new friends mixed up. So life was uneventful for a few days and Woofy and the Three Amigos seemed to be rather happy in their little bowl. Then it happened.
We went to church the next Sunday and in a mad dash to get out the door on time we somehow forgot to feed them. We came home to the Three Amigos swimming around a dead floating WOOFY! It was a very sad sight and when we very somberly called Lydia into the kitchen and broke the news gently she was sad for a moment and then said, "Can I flush him?" Well, we're glad she understands the way of the fishy world!
A week later we went to church and came home to find Dubba dead in the bowl. Honestly, what is going on here. I looked at Tiger and Tiny and thought "and then there were none!" Good luck guys, may the best fish win! This time Lydia asked to hold Dubba before she flushed him! We actually went out of town quite a bit the following two weeks and even had two different neighbors fish sit for us. They seemed to do a much better job and after we came home the last time Lydia told me, "Wow Mom our neighbors are good at watching the fish. They never die for them. They only die when we have them!" Yes Lydia, I think you are on to something. Either that or the first three were just wimpy. Tiger and Tiny are still swimming away and just might be competing for the title of longest living fish in the Riding home!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)