community service

in an effort to get kids to give a crap about the world, we are forcing all of our kids to do four hours of community service. two hours at school (and this includes lame things like i went to the prom or i went to a baseball game to watch our team suck) and two out-of-school hours (so things like volunteering at second harvest or habitat for humanity.)

so meghan, bless her, has made a serious effort to find out-of-school opportunities for kids and made a whole handout about working at samaritan house, or volunteering for "girls on the run," or habitat for humanity, or working at the animal shelter or volunteering one's time to tutor other kids.

we have this one kid, t, whom i'll refer to as kafka (because that's his fav author and what freshman in his right mind reads freaking kafka?) who politely informed me that he did not wish to tutor other kids, hates animals, and is not interested in getting involved with girls or samaritan house. "can't i just give money to some poor people or something?" he laments. oh yes, community service is DEFINITELY to punish (or provide an opportunity to show empathy) kids like him. kids who are too smartass and too smart and too full of themselves to be allowed to exist. plus, he's socially retarded so doing anything in a community is nothing short of abject torture for my dear kafka.

so, in jest, i told him he could learn to knit baby hats and donate them to charities that this one knitting store Imagiknit in SF supports. i was seriously kidding, but kafka, in a fit of desperation to be totally uncool and completely antisocial, has asked me for a knitting pattern so he can do it at home. he looks so miserable about that i had to work real hard to refrain from snickering. imagine with me, can you, an average-sized nerdy white boy, with a penchant for video games and coding in algorithms, asking me for knitting patterns so he can just get his community service done with.

ah, for the sake of raising community awareness. my job is SICK.