We, The Unwilling,
Led By The Unknowing,
Are Doing The Impossible
For The Ungrateful.
We Have Done So Much
For So Long
With So Little,
We Are Now Capable
Of Doing Anything
With Nothing!

"Mrs. Mallard?"

"Which one?" I juggled the phone while I dumped scoop after scoop of cake dough into paper cup-lined muffin wells.

"Alexandra's mother."

"You found her."

"This is Mrs. Packer."

Not the teacher. Packer, Packer— "Oh, yes! Stevie's mother." (All those years we spend being Charles and Victoria's son, Ray's kid sister, Ducky's wife, Lexi's father—you start to question your own identity after a while.)

"Yes. And Heather in the third grade. Please call me Wanda."

"Cassandra—or Sandy." Yea, we're our own people again!

"I was looking on my list, and I don't see your name marked off."

"Marked off? Off for what?"

"Volunteering in December."

Dear god, what now? I wanted to whine. "Well, right now I'm baking six dozen cupcakes for the bake sale tomorrow, Monday I helped chaperone the field trip to the Lincoln Memorial, I'm co-room parent with Elyse Martindale, someone put my name on the textbook committee, I ended up secretary of the PTA—" (Stupid me, I ran out to the restroom at the wrong moment.) "—I just got my supply of wrapping paper fundraiser envelopes and I'm going to mark all the students' names on them to drop off with the cupcakes tomorrow—and I'm trying to run a business at the same time. Volunteer for what in December?" Isn't there anyone else in the room you can hit up? In the school?

"The first weekend in December is our Winter Carnival. Now, a lot of parents signed up last year because they knew they'd have at least one student at Armstrong. Of course we've lost parents whose students graduated and some who unexpectedly moved away—so we do need to fill those slots!" Her voice was way too perky.

"I'd love to, but—"

"You do know that the state has cut the budget—"

I listened for a couple of paragraphs. When she finally took a breath, I said, "I understand, believe me—"

She kept going. "And the amount of personal money the teachers put into room supplies—"

Another breath; I tried again. "I really—"

"—science lab—"

"But—"

"—computers—"

"If I—"

"—active interest in their child's education—"

"No, no, I do—"

"—not even four hours of face painting, I just can't believe—"

"Maybe…"

"—expertise in books—"

"Well…"

Five minutes later I shoved three muffin tins in the oven and glared at my reflection in the window above the sink. "Thank you, Sally Spineless," I grumbled.

"Talking to yourself again?"

"As always," I sighed.

"Get a good answer?" Ducky slipped an arm about my waist and gave me a kiss on my temple.

"Not really. I broke the NAVY rule."

He looked puzzled. "NAVY rule?"

"NAVY—Never Again Volunteer Yourself."

"What now? Girl Scout leader? Soccer coach?" His tone was half amused, half exasperated.

"Lexi isn't interested in Scouts—yet—and I don't know rule one of soccer. No—Wanda Packer is co-chair of the Winter Carnival and she… kind of… talked… me… into… running the used books room."

Ducky sighed. "Cassandra—no. Enough. Kindergarten has been in session for, what—two and a half weeks? They already tapped you to chaperone a bus load of fifth graders—"

"That was only because Elyse's son is in the fifth grade and the other room mother was in the hospital with an emergency something-or-other being removed and she was desperate," I said in my defense.

"The point is, you do enough! We do enough—though you do more than I, I readily admit. No. You've done enough for king and country—Wanda Packer needs to find someone else."

"I can't just unvolunteer myself!" Besides, I wanted to remind him, you're the one who says our coat of arms should be crossed suckers on a field of guppies.

"You didn't volunteer in the first place," he retorted. "It sounds like you were all but shanghaied."

I loathed the idea of calling Wanda. I had a feeling she'd convince me to—oh, I don't know, come in as playground monitor or something. (Not unless she gives me a whip and a chair.) "I'll just rearrange a few things." (My mother said when we were young, she didn't have time to sleep and when we were older, she didn't dare sleep—so by the time we were out of the house she forgot how to sleep.)

"Well, if you won't stand up for yourself, I will. You're spread too thin as it is!" With a kiss to my cheek and muttering about finding the parent handbook, he almost stalked off to his office.

Only moments later, Lexi hopped into the kitchen. Literally. She was imitating Harvey (what else would you name a white rabbit? (okay, I did cast a vote for Jefferson—as in Airplane)), hopping a safe few feet in front of her grandmother. "Cup! Cakes! Ready! Yet?" she yelped in time to her hops.

"I just put them in the oven. I'll save some for our dessert, I promise."

"What's! For! Dinner?"

"Chicken stew."

"Yum! Mee!"

"Put the pogo stick away and set the table, please."

"I! Don't! Have! A! Pogo! Stick!" She didn't hesitate more than a nanosecond. "Mommy, what's a pogo stick? Can I have one?"

"May I have one," I automatically corrected before realizing my second answer—"And, no."—should have been my first.

"Pleeeease?"

"You don't even know what it is, so why would you want one?"

"'cause it sounds fun!"

"Again—no. You are dangerous enough on feet and roller skates, I'm not adding another mechanical device into your bag of tricks." I pointed to the low cabinet that was always stocked with virtually unbreakable Corelle. "Table. Set it. Now, please."

"Felix the cat," she sang, hauling out tableware. "The wonderful, wonderful cat! Whenever he gets in a fix he reaches into his bag of tricks—"

Ah. Bag of tricks. Explained why she was pulling out the lyrics from a vintage 'toon they run on Saturday mornings.

Mother beamed at her. "You have such a lovely voice!"

I love my daughter—but only a tiny minority of kids can sing well; 99.99% of the kids her age can sort of… barely… almost… carry a tune. Lexi is not that missing .01%. But to a grandmother—ah, well.

Ducky slipped back into the kitchen and started whipping up his it-doesn't-have-a-name-my-god-it's-delicious salad dressing. (Only he can make it. I've tried a dozen times; it just doesn't taste right.) "You reach Wanda?"

"Ah—yes. Yes, I did."

"How'd it go?"

He looked disgruntled. "Well, between the cuts in the state budget and the increase in student load…" He sighed at my puzzled look. "I'm—I'm running the silent auction. She's emailing me a list of possible donors…"

I reached over to the smaller of the two cookie jars, pulled out a Dum Dum and handed it to him. "Fellow sucker—welcome to the club."

A/N: The title of this chapter, like all in this not-a-story, is from a button. This particular button was part of my contribution to the collection. Throughout my daughter's early school years I was the only one to run bake sales at her preschool/daycare. The other parents happily bought the wares, but, literally, I had ONE donation of goods to ONE bake sale. A bag of Oreos. (Pathetic.) My button-collecting friend—also my daughter's extended family aunt—cheerfully helped me make dozens of this and pounds of that for every holiday imaginable—and some "just because" sales, too. After one particularly grueling Xmas sale, she found this button and gave it to me in my Xmas card. (I'm sure that the Fairfax County schools don't have bake sales any more—a lot of schools don't for fear of lawsuits. Tough. In my universe, Victoria Mallard isn't dead and schools have bake sales.)