In Which I (Almost) Purchase Real Estate in Cuckooville

The border between motherhood and Cuckooville is easy to traverse. Too easy. Witness:

1) I either invented or at some point read about a little to-do for school in which the kids purchase paper hearts in honor of their teachers. The teacher who receives the most paper hearts must then don a Cupid costume on Valentine's Day. So simple, thought I! So much bang for so little buck!

2) Crossing the bridge to Cuckooville, I drafted a partner and together we set about making "Cupid-For-a-Day" a reality.

3) Announcements were made! Flyers were sent home! Posters were created! Room parents were enlisted to festoon classroom doors with hearts and flowery prose!

Problems:

1) When I went to purchase the paper hearts, I realized it would cost approximately 43 bazillion dollars. Not to be deterred, I simply bought construction paper and used the die-cut machine at school to cut out about 400 hearts. This hopelessly boring task required 90 minutes of my time and exhausted both my left and right biceps. I also stamped each heart with a distinguishing mark so as to dissuade the type of forgery so prevalent in today's elementary school environment. I'm kidding! About the forgery part, I mean.

2) Yesterday, on the first day of what will be four days of sales, we were mobbed. MOBBED. Even now I cringe to think of all those little grubby, grabby, gropey, goopy hands. It was not unlike the penultimate scene in a bad horror movie.

3) There are no hearts left. This is good for obvious reasons and bad because...

4) ...the Principal wouldn't let me take the die-cut machine home. It turns out that teachers often come in on the weekend to use it.

5) To prepare for Monday's onslaught, most of my tomorrow—as well as the tomorrow of my trusty Cupid partner—will be spent cutting hearts by hand. *SCREAM*

Other issues of miscellaneous interest:

1) Between our morning and lunch shift, I ran home to make 100 pancakes for Lea's class. Why? Because, you silly, Friday was also the schoolwide "100th Day" celebration, and Lea's teacher asked me to. By the time I returned to school I was sweating and, in my haste, had burned myself by grabbing the plate of pancakes straight out of the oven, where I was keeping them warm.

2) When I went searching for a Cupid costume online, all I could find were outfits that can only be described as "Porno Cupid," "Bad, Bad Cupid," "Oh-No-You-Didn't Cupid," and "Cupid What Big, Um, EYES You Have."

3) The fruitless Internet search necessitated a trip to the unpleasant House of Humor in Redwood City. Clearly, the reason it's called "The House of Humor" is because it's just HILARIOUS that it would take a customer such as myself an entire HOUR to navigate the disorganization and locate feather wings and a bow and arrow.

4) BUT, since Redwood City is only a stone's hurl from Menlo Park, I went ahead and rewarded myself with a long browse through Kepler's where I found an anthology of single scene short stories titled, rather obviously, Single Scene Short Stories. Later, I met the SU for dinner and a movie: "No Country For Old Men." This, my friends, is how I escaped Cuckooville and found my way home.

Finis.