Future Homemakers Society Rejects

Posted on March 9th, 2010 by Your Aunt Becky

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When I entered the second grade, my mother dutifully signed me up for Brownies, which is sort of the baby version of The Girl Scouts. I don’t know if I battled her for it or not, but I’m going to guess that I did, because that’s the kind of person I was am was back then. Always a sucker for a uniform, I proudly ran home from school after getting my poo-brown uniform and put it on.

Even at 7, I knew it looked bad. The color was just…off.

But I looked official, and that’s what mattered to me. I strutted proudly around the house for awhile while my mother rolled her eyes at me. A couple of days later, she announced that I had to go to my first meeting.

Bwaaa?

Excuse me? I didn’t sign up for anything that required WORK.

I trekked to the meeting and joined a bunch of girls and their mothers who sat around in a semi-circle (something I would later be very, very afraid of) and they all excitedly discussed how we could earn PATCHES!!! for our SASHES!!!! by doing THINGS!!!!

My own eyes began to roll back in my head as the meeting wore on and on. Sisterhood was discussed, as were things like overnight field trips and selling cookies. I was beginning to feel like the whole uniform thing really wasn’t worth the bullshit.

At the next meeting, which my mother dragged me to, even after I faked the stomach flu and a fever of 109 degrees, it was time to make a “kneeling pad.” We had to sandwich two large pieces of vinyl between a piece of Styrofoam and stitch it up with green yarn. I wanted to actively kill myself.

What the fuck was I going to do with this besides try and smother my older brother with it?

My mother snickered when she saw me trudging back to the car with my creation.

“What IS that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “We’re supposed to KNEEL on it or something.”

I’m pretty sure you could hear her laughter for blocks.

My abysmal failure at selling any cookies when it came time to “FUNDRAISE, GIRLS!!!” and my inability to earn a single patch, finally convinced her to allow me to quit. She’d never insisted I stick with anything I didn’t really like, and I’m sure she was tired of me bringing home my pathetic attempts at craft projects.

I mean, who could blame her? One of the cats started using the “kneeling pad” as a peeing pad and ruined one of the carpets and my older brother had actually broken a tooth on one of my attempts at making a ceramic cup. It was time to admit that I was never, ever going to cut it as a housewife.

Ha. If they could only see me now…

Wait a minute.

Is it too late to become a heiress?

——————-

I’m over at Toy With Me talking about The Birds and the Bees. It’s a shockingly safe for work post.

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