>Classroom Volunteering: The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Loathe.

>Some of you know I volunteer in my daughter’s kindergarten classroom once a week. You, like my husband, may think it’s not the slightest bit difficult- but I’m here to tell you that being a classroom volunteer is a very high-pressure job, filled with just as many challenges as an executive faces at a Fortune 500 company.

Only the strongest moms survive it at all.

In the last five months that I’ve been volunteering, I’ve braved laminating machines that could have seriously burned me and die-cut devices that just might have left me fingerless if I hadn’t known what I was doing. I’ve weathered illness brought on by the invisible cesspool of germs inevitably created when 20 five-year-olds congregate in a single room for seven hours a day. I’ve pried open hundreds, nay, thousands of staples with my bare nails and suffered through countless paper cuts. And I’ve cut out Christmas wreaths and art projects and autumn leaves until my fingers bled.

Okay, that last one was an exaggeration, but you get my drift. Volunteering is definitely not for the weak.

And that was why my friend and fellow classroom volunteer, Carol, sounded so concerned when she called me last month.

“What’s wrong, Carol?” I asked, instantly picking up on her worried tone.

“Well, it’s just that my doctor can only see me on Monday the 14th,” she said, “and that’s my volunteer day. But if I reschedule the appointment, they can’t work me in for another three months. I just don’t know what to do! I was hoping maybe you could cover for me.”

“Oh Carol, I’m so sorry,” I said, “but that’s the one day I can’t get Bruiser in for Mother’s Morning Out. I do come in on Tuesdays, though. Surely, anything that doesn’t get done on Monday can wait one morning and I’ll do it the next day.”

Carol moaned in despair. We were both quiet for a moment. “Can you sharpen pencils?” she asked finally.

“Of course I can,” I assured her. “And that’s the first thing I’ll do when I come in Tuesday the 15th.”

“Well, I suppose that’ll have to do,” she said finally. I sighed, relieved that I had had some experience with an electric pencil sharpener. Like Carol, I’d just hate to let everybody down.

Of course, my daughter’s teacher totally knows this about me, and that’s how I mysteriously end up with more homework than even my teenagers, whether I’m whipping up batches of brownies for the endless class parties, hunting down vintage buttons for a class project, or, in one memorable incident, cutting out hundreds of paper stock skeleton bones until two in the morning. After that experience, I finally swore to myself I’d never take on more than I could handle again.

Riiiiiight.

One recent Tuesday morning, my daughter’s teacher lugged two oversized writing tablets to the table where I was working. Each tablet was filled with pages and pages of words the students had come up with to represent the letters of the alphabet.

“I have to draw a picture beside each word,” she explained, “and we’re going to be working on these starting on Monday. So can you just flip through it this morning and draw pictures wherever you can?”

“No problem,” I said. I actually enjoy drawing, and happily got to work on the first page of the list. Within moments, four kids were gathered around, watching me draw.

“Wow!” the teacher exclaimed, coming over to see my work when my time was up. “You’re an artist!”

“Oh, not really,” I said, blushing. “I liked to draw as a kid.”

“Well, you’re great at it!” she insisted. “I’m not artistic at all,” she confided. “Drawing these pictures for the kids is such a challenge for me. I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done by Monday.”

“It is a lot of work,” I admitted cautiously. I could see where this was going.

“Mrs. Smith next door stays after school and works on hers for hours,” the teacher continued. Her eyes grew big and misty. “But for me, it’s a question of staying after school and finishing these or spending time with my children after I haven’t seen them all day.”

“Oh,” I said weakly. Remember the bones, a small voice inside me whispered. REMEMBER THE BONES.

“You know, if you ever want to come in and do more of these pictures, that would be fine with me,” the teacher said, smiling hopefully. I stared blankly at her. We both knew I couldn’t come in again until next Tuesday, after the tablets needed to be finished. Did she want me to… take them home?

BONES.

“Yes, well, I’ll see you next week!” I said brightly. “Ta ta!”

And I left, barely escaping what would have been hours and hours of labor.

But I couldn’t escape the guilt.

The next morning, when I brought Punky to school, I walked with her to her classroom.

“Give me the tablets,” I told the teacher shortly. She smiled, victorious.

“Oh, thank you!” she bubbled. “Here! Let me give you some markers, too!”

And that’s how I ended up drawing pictures until my fingers fell off. Not only were there hundreds of words, but some were a real challenge when it came to coming up with accompanying pictures.

Come on. Is? What kind of picture represents ‘is?’ Was my daughter’s teacher actively trying to drive me mad?

How about ‘quantum?’ And ‘quantonium?’ What was with these kids, anyway? What happened to good old ‘quail’ and ‘quiz?’ GAH.

And then there were the names. THE NAMES. Of course, every child in the class was represented, but so were brothers, sisters, and friends, and I had no idea who these people were or what they looked like, particularly ‘Quinn.’ Was Quinn a boy or a girl?! Damned if I knew. I ended up drawing my own version of Pat, from Saturday Night Live.

4,582 pictures and five days later, I was more than a little punchy. My pictures began to contain hidden meanings and personal jokes. ‘Book,’ for example, became a chance to reassure my daughter and her classmates that mommies do in fact know everything. Clearly, I was losing it and the evidence was all over two oversized classroom tablets.

The next Monday, hollow-eyed and exhausted, I brought in my masterpiece to the teacher.

“Thanks!” she said. I grunted and turned to stumble back out of the classroom.

“Never again,” I muttered, clutching at the doorframe for support. “Never. Again.“

But who was I kidding? I’d be back the very next day, ready to take on more labor. What would it be then? Painting a ceiling mural? Building a new addition to the east wing?

As I said.

Only the toughest classroom volunteers survive.