A RUTHLESS commercial enterprise masquerading as fun for children, the school summer fayre is screaming for your goods. What will you toss into its jaws?
One: a bottle
Asked for any bottle, you scan the house for unwanted bubble bath sets or dusty three-packs of Toilet Duck. Eventually, grim-faced, you give up a precious bottle of wine. In three weeks you will buy it back with a raffle ticket taped to it.
Two: Item for class hamper
The theme is ‘Treat time!’ which isn’t really a theme so much as a demand. Nonetheless, you did your best to honour it by throwing in a vibrator. What, whoever’s winning this raffle doesn’t enjoy a nice machine-assisted orgasm?
Three: A jolly jar
You’re instinctively opposed to filling a Kilner jar with gender-neutral, sugar-free, plastic-free items that will supposedly thrill a small child into paying for it. Especially as your own child is that gullible. Consider making your contribution unusable by filling it with drawing pins and peanuts.
Four: A tray bake
This is neither the 1950s nor Bake-Off so why you’re making rice krispie cakes for the PTA Gestapo when Mini Rolls are available in the shops you don’t know. Careful, distinctive icing means you can buy your own because you don’t trust the other contributors to wash their hands.
Five: Items for the uniform stall
Your child loses shit relentlessly. What makes the PTA think you can spare the few items of uniform which survive? Short-circuit the system by claiming half of lost property and sending that in. All funds go towards the new library, which they need because the kids lost all the books from the old one.
Six: A large, complex DIY project
You’ve been seen in the playground in paint-spattered overalls, so it’ll be no trouble at all for you to build a backdrop for the photo booth, oh, and fix Splat the Rat. Now you’ve got glitter paint under your nails, resentment burning behind your eyes, and you have to queue up for Lottie to have a rubbish £5 photo while kids slag off your work.
Seven: Time
Throwing stuff at the bastards only gets you so far. Now you’re signed up to man a stall, turning up at 10am, hard at work until 4pm, then two hours tidying while the teachers drink Pimms and count their money. Still, it meant you could nick all the good bottles and £80 cash.
