Kid B came home yesterday with a paper for me to sign about an upcoming Market Day for the 6th graders at her middle school.  Each child has to come up with a prototype – of anything really – which they will then mass produce (twenty or more are required) for under twenty dollars.  They will then “sell” these items in a market-like format in the cafeteria or gym for “dollars” (most likely something counterfeit with the principal’s picture on it).  The goal is to have the most fake money at the end.  It is also supposed to teach stuff about supply and demand, manufacturing, sales, price points, and getting rich quick schemes.  I’m in.

From what I recall of Kid A doing this same project, a lot of kids bring in some sort of craft project.  Pipe cleaners, beads, pom-poms, popsicle sticks, felt swatches and glue guns.  Ugh!  This is not my area of like or expertise.  My mom was/ is a kind of Martha Stewart on meth (extraordinarily creative and never sleeps), so I grew up in a house full of crap projects everywhere.  Sorry, craft projects.  I kind of hate them actually.  If this is the plan, I’m now out.  Kid B knows this and wants me to help her (read: do the project for her), so she opts for something she knows I’d be on board with… baking cookies.  Smart kid.  I’m waaaaaaay back in.

Who wouldn’t want to buy a chocolate chunk cookie?  Sales will not be a problem, but we should try to stand out even more with some kind of hook.  One of the requirements is that the items have to be individually packaged, so each cookie has to be in its own plastic bag.  We thought about it some more and Kid B came up with the idea of putting a little fortune inside each bag and calling them “fortune” cookies.  Fun, right?  Then I had the additional brilliant idea of gearing the fortunes specifically to her audience.  This is apparently where I got out of hand.

My proposal was this…  She should divide the cookies by secret color coding into three groups – teachers, girls and boys.  There will be a set of fortunes geared toward each customer.  For example, teacher cookies would say things like,”YOU ARE EVERYONE’S FAVORITE TEACHER” and “YOU WON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH ANY CRAPPY, KNOW-IT-ALL PARENTS NEXT SEMESTER.”  Girl cookies would have fortunes along the lines of “THAT’S TOO MUCH EYELINER –  YOU LOOK LIKE A PROSTITUTE” or “YOUR BOOBS WILL GROW OVER THE SUMMER.”  And the boys’ cookies would say things like, “YOU WILL SOON BE AS STRONG AS YOUR DAD,”  “JUSTIN BEIBER CALLED AND HE WANTS HIS HAIRSTYLE BACK” and “A GIRL WITH LOW SELF-ESTEEM WILL LET YOU GET TO SECOND BASE VERY SOON.”  I had some real zingers.  I was laughing at myself so hard that I almost didn’t hear when Kid B told me I was fired from the project.

I am so under-appreciated.  Whatever.

Wish me luck for tomorrow…