WTCF?

Totally off topic but it had to be done. I hate school functions.  I love my daughter and I love watching her compete or be recognized and I love the other kids... (for the most part) but I HATE the parents.  We live on the edge of a really nice school district with a brand new multi-million dollar high school. We are in a trailer park on the edge…did I mention that? In any case, after arriving at the sports banquet last night we were told the girls were all sitting up front.  I know not one single parent in the room.  I work two jobs and make about ¼ of the Gurl Child’s events and then I hang by myself because I know no one.

I can stand in front of room full of strangers and talk about the merits of having the perfect resume’ or teach a class full of people how to make a spreadsheet.  I was once handed a stapler in a job interview and had to give an impromptu presentation about the merits of its versatility and functionality and I killed it but please don’t ask me to socialize at school functions. It makes me sweaty and awkward.  I feel inadequate and shabby and I understand how much this is all my very own problem.  I understand that these people are wealthy and some of them have even worked for it.  I understand that it’s not their fault that I live in a goddamned trailer park in a cabin. I get that and I don’t blame them.  Doesn’t make it any easier for me to weather though.

Let’s add to my discomfort, the fact that I do my own hair.  I cut it, I color it.  Occasionally, I’ll spring for the salon but I can’t drop what equates to a tank of gas on my hair.  I just can’t do it.  I normally get the color from the beauty supply and mix and apply and no harm, no foul.

The GC and I went to Wal-Mart 2 nights prior to previously mentioned banquet and she says, “MOM!! Get this…it’ll be great!” It was called Super Blonde.  I am blonde.  I am naturally a dark blonde…all the hair on my body is blonde. I thought, What could it hurt?  When I pulled the towel off my wet head, I almost fainted.  Imagine the brassiest blonde on the whoriest porn star and that’s what was there. It was awful…it was cheap looking and it was awful. I had to live with it  for a couple of days until I could put a toner on it. I had to work that night and the next after work and wouldn’t have time to pick it up or even go home and do it at 10 at night.  So I went to the banquet with brassy porn star hair.

I had on black slacks and a cute white tee with black and white peep toe pumps.  Simple jewelry and oh yeah…porn hair.  I felt ok though. I didn’t feel like I’d be over or underdressed…it was my work attire and I was not going to be conspicuous.  Well, except for the GODDAMNED PORN HAIR. 

GC directs me to a table where Sarah’s mom is sitting and apparently Sarah’s mom is nice and it’ll be fine and go sit there.  Fine. I sit, I introduce, we exchange the obligatory, “Who’s your kid?” We talk about whether the food will be any good and she proceeds to tell me that she has four children and all their ages and that they are busy building their 3^rd house in a chi-chi-poo-poo- la-de-da part of town and she thinks she has it all down now because after all this is her 3^rd house and it’s just so HARD picking out all the tile at once but it’s going to be so great to quit renting because you know the renting is so HARD living in someone’s else’s house like that and oh by the way I stay home and my husband works and what do you do?"

Yeah…this bitch.

“Well, I work as an admin assistant full time and then I work part time as a cashier.”

You could see it. I didn’t imagine it and I didn’t make it up, it was the confusion and the calculation taking over her face as she tried to comprehend that she was talking to white trash.  I mean if she hadn’t figured it out from the hair already.

This is my nightmare porn star hair.

“Oooooohhh, that’s really great.” With the patronizing tone as if she were addressing a beloved cat that just presented her with a dead bird with feathers everywhere and guts hanging out.  To be honest it was also the tone I used when the sparsely toothed gentleman from two houses down talked about how "the 5 year old can whoop the 7 year old cuz he's a tough lil basterd." I was familiar.

We were in line for food by this time so I just faced front and tried to blow it all off.  We got our catered fajitas and sat down only to be joined by another mom who went through the whole , “Who’s your kid?” spiel and then promptly asked, “Where are your husbands?”

Sarah’s mom proudly said,  “He’s working. You know we just moved back and are renting in the subdivision til our house is finished. Did I tell you it’s my third? Anyway, he’s having to commute right now so he can’t be here but he was so so disappointed, it’s just so HARD.”

Mother #2 just nodded sympathetically and turned to me with eyebrows raised. I just stared back hoping she’d ignore me and tell us where her husband was since usually when someone asks a question like that they really want you to ask them the same question. She didn’t though. She said, “And yours?”

I wanted to say, well my WIFE couldn’t be here tonight, but I thought of GC and the trouble it could cause her and said, “I don’t have one of those.”

Her eyebrows shot up even further as if in disbelief and she simply said, “Oh.”

Sarah’s mother said very diplomatically, “Well, it’s good you could be here tonight.” As if my single motherhood would preclude me from attending any of my daughter’s functions since I was probably home having indiscriminate sex for crack money and then smoking said crack in front of my daughter.

We all had to quiet down the chit chat so we could watch the awards and blah blah blah blah then pictures then cake. I heard from both of these parents that they LOVED my GC and thought she was the best kid ever but it was funny how they said it like they just couldn't fucking believe it.

Then my GC knowing how I was dying inside came and stuck out her hand and said, “You ready to blow this pop stand, Baby?”

“Sure am, Momma.” I took her hand and bid the ladies good-bye and thanks for the conversation.  We walked hand in hand back to the truck laughing and joking.  The anxiety melted away and I felt like I could breathe once again.  When we got to the truck, I looked in the back and saw the bag of garbage we hadn’t dumped yet, the empty gas can and the old slipper still hanging out in there and then caught a glimpse of my glow in the dark hair in the truck window. Then it comes to me when I’m no longer in that situation faced with the perfect mothers with their perfectly absent husbands that my daughter is a 15 year old virgin who has a good heart and a strong mind and I might very well be white trash but I don’t really give a country fuck.