Dotty Parker

b.y.o.p.

Bring Your Own Pumpkin

That's right. One of the crazy old ladies on the Vernal Community Association's board of directors wants the kids who come to the party to bring their own pumpkins.

The DimeMiser, we'll call her. She's 87 or 88 according to the overreacting control freak who has known her for 20 or 25 years. We'll call him Blackened.

Blackened's wife is the FunRaiser. She actually gets things done and has some fun at the same time. The FunRaiser requested an additional $100 to throw the annual Halloween party. She's usually allocated $50 to entertain, amuse, feed, and scare the pants off of the neighborhood kids. $50 doesn't get you very far.

We had a discussion about where the money would come from and how it would be used and if it was worth it and blah blah.

She started mumbling about how the party costs too much. Last year they spent $40 on the pumpkins! I actually have the quote. "I wouldn't buy the pumpkins. That's money thrown out the window!"

She's old and she's mean. I called her Scrooge and she didn't blink. She wanted the kids to bring their own pumpkins to carve. She said something like this: They've already got fifty dollars! They feed them, they entertain them, they play games with them. What more do they want?

She is, predictably, a skinny, wrinkly, white-haired woman. She has the old kind of horn-rimmed glasses. Hers are sexy, though, because they're pearlized gray plastic with a rhinestone on each side. (I bet she had the multiple rhinestone option, but refused. I also bet that she got the rhinestone for free because someone had neglected to do something for her.)

And she shops at Wal-Mart.

Bring your own pumpkins. Blackened crunched his bottle when she said the line about bringing their own. I smiled when the fancy eco-consultant said, "punkin." So adorable.

We voted to give her the extra money. DimeMiser abstained from the vote. Old goat. Won't even vote no.

On the way out of the meeting,FunRaiser came out and said, "What's next? Bring your own syrup to the pancake breakfast?"

It's probably not a bad idea.

Posted by dotty at September 8, 2004 08:28 PM