Boondoggle!

     This will be a rant about a thing that bugs the everlivin' crap outta me. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me a giant waste of funds. No, it's not the 700 billion dollar bailout. Trillion. Whatever. No, it's not the millions in earmarks Palin requested so she can build a widow's walk atop the manse in Wasilla, the better to see the Kremlin from. No, it's not even the relentless lies the McCain/Palin campaign is paying tens of millions of dollars for, under the guise of political advertising, to pollute our public airwaves.

     This is insidious. This is personal.

     This is the big fat check M stroked this morning for kindergarten field trips and "special programs." There are ten -- ten -- planned this year, two of which are free. The hit parade includes:

• $5.00 for a pumpkin-picking junket to a farm in October 
• $4.00 for a day at one of the stuffiest history museums in the South
• $13.00 for three plays about Pocahontas, Rumplestiltskin, and Rikki-tikki-tavi 
• $15.00 for a "young scientists" program; there are no details about this one
• $1.00 for another farm visit in May
• $7.00 for -- are you ready? -- a trip to the local botanical gardens. Because as every parent knows, five year olds loves them some botanical gardens.

     This is a public, inner-city school with a significant population of free-lunch kids. And they want parents to fork over $45.00 for what? For kindergartners to gaze at nineteenth-century sculpture and plants? 

     Full disclosure: A was in the pre-K program at this school last year; same deal. I emailed the principal to offer alternatives to these cost-prohibitive excursions: poll the parents, I suggested, and take the children to see what people do all day at work. I'm in graduate school, let me show them what that looks like. Annie's mother is an artist -- let's visit her studio. Plus, this is a burden on our household budget, and I am certain we're not the only ones. There is no opt-out feature; no Plan B for children whose parents can't pay up, or think it best not to. I never got a response from the principal. 

     Fucking hell, what is wrong with taking kindergartners on a nature walk around the block to collect leaves and squeal at bugs? They gotta herd them onto a bus and schlepp them to places only people with blue hair and powdered faces get off on? For money?

     Nothing against old people, but my child is five. I suspect her interests are a bit different.

     Can you imagine having more than one child in this school? "Pony up $135 you didn't count on spending this month or your children will be left out, identified as the losers they are, teased mercilessly and ostracized for life." Man, I feel for the families who didn't budget for it and just cannot afford it.

     M (wisely?) wrote the check and got it into A's bookbag before I ever saw the extortion note. So much for feeling all smug about paying bills and having a little pad through the end of the month. 

     So, yeah. Kindergarten can suck it, again.