In recent years, I switched from working "picture day" at my kids' school to stuffing envelopes whenever they need help. Josie has graduated but I told Maggie, the volunteer coordinator to keep my name on file. I want to continue to support what I consider the best elementary school in the twin cities in this way. Also, I find stuffing envelopes to be sort of a Zen-like activity; mindless repetitive action allows my creative juices to flow so that when I do get back to work, it flies.
I'm the only one under the age of seventy folding, stuffing and sorting on those days. Retiree/volunteers help make the private school world go round.
It's probably due to working in the wonderful world of needlepoint since I was fourteen but I get along very well with senior citizens. I figure; anyone who's managed to stay alive that long probably knows something worth while. Wisdom doesn't always come with age, of course. Plenty of people who are old enough to know better simply don't, but that's just the human condition.
There's one gal who is always there when I volunteer whom I can't stand. She's a perfectly nice (way too syrupy nice if you ask me) and soft spoken, with a squeaky little Minnie Mouse voice. A chance statement she made the first time I ever volunteered with her rubbed me the wrong way and she's managed to compound it every single time I meet her.
In her sweet little voice, she manages to bad mouth people she knows every chance she gets and it's always over the same thing; that certain folks choose to continue working rather than retiring and donating all their time and energy to volunteering like she does.
Naturally, she's an Obama supporter. Hey Mr. President;
I serve the public by working, contributing to the economy, paying taxes and raising my kids to be law-abiding (mostly), productive citizens, so with all due respect,
get off my back.The smug doesn't roll off her in waves, but it seeps from every pore.
One time she disparaged a gal she knows for continuing to work and paying others to keep up her garden and her house for her, rather than devoting the rest of her life to painting her own woodwork and pulling her own weeds.
"Thank goodness for her!" I opened my yap and chirped "Someone's got to keep all those handymen and yard workers employed!"
Another time, she tsked over a woman who just won't retire and volunteer enough because according to mean Minnie she just looooves getting a paycheck. What does this Scrooge McDuck do? She's a nurse.
"Maybe she just enjoys taking care of people." I said. "Maybe she loves what she does and considering the burn-out rate in the nursing field, thank goodness there are some like her who can stick with it."
"Well..." Minnie shrugged "I just think she should take it easy and there are plenty of others who could do her job."
WHO THE F*** CARES WHAT YOU THINK? I'm pretty sure I didn't say out loud. What I did say was "Well,
I'm never gonna retire. There's no one out there who can do what I do."
I didn't mean no one can design needlepoint. But just like there are plenty of novelists, only Vince Flynn can write a Vince Flynn novel.
Mainly I just said it to bother her.
The bottom line is I can hardly wait to get another call from school for envelope stuffing so I can verbally punch Minnie Mouth in the chops.
I love old folks as long as they don't piss me off.
