In Charge

There have been a few times in my life where I've been in charge of organizing and coordinating people to do things. In college, this involved mentioning that there would be a) pizza, or b) beer, or c) both. You'd think I'm kidding, but looking back, it was truly pathetic what college students would do for pizza. Beer, i understand, but pizza? We ate the stuff 10 times a week. It amused me as we got older and people realized that they didn't necessarily have to STAY at a lecture on the formation of crystalline structures and it's application in manufacturing (hee, I just typed manufucturing...) novelty dog poop to get the pizza. It was even more amusing when my friend would show up with a pizza he blatantly TOOK fom a meeting.

Nowadays, I just try to organize a mom's group.

Which is like trying to herd, um, things that are notoriously difficult to herd. What things are notoriously difficult to herd?

Our group consists of working and Stay At Home Moms. And people with toddlers, infants, and early school age children. Did you realize that every child in the world is on a different 'nap schedule' from every other child in the world? And that there are 5 conflicting ideas for every 4 people? So trying to 'get a feel' for when to do things or what to do makes me want to run full speed, head down, into a brick wall.

I learned to stop asking so much.

And yet, every so often, someone will ask, 'What about this?' on our internet message board, and there pops up a discussion about times and places and costs and who works when until I want to scream. Tough shit you can't make it, that's life... I think Frank Sinatra sang a song once about life.

And all that is fine, and I can deal with that crap, because at least people are just trying to accomodate everyone and make it a happy happy inclusive event. And I believe in inclusivity. Especially in a big group, I don't want to exclude anyone who I may not like or who is currently driving me crazy (which is a fairly long list, which is why I think I am antisocial. If I were more social, I would find out more stupid things people are doing or saying.), it's all good because we're ADULTS, right? We get along with people because that's POLITE and you are always CHOOSING where you are, right?

I am wrong on that point, because the internet mom world is as crazy as high school, and I wasn't in any of the 'Mean Girls' cliques in high school. I floated through there kind of doing my own thing, and aside from one or two instances freshman year, everyone let me do my own thing. As far as I know there were no particular rumors about me, and I didn't start any about any other girls.

So now I am occasionally faced with these nutjob women and mostly I just walk away, because they're crazy.