Less Sugar, More Faith

You can learn a lot about humanity while minding a fully loaded bake sale table. Some kids come up to the table and immediately know what they want, wordlessly hand over their two tickets, grab their treat, and go. Some kids peruse for a really long time, picking up an item, putting it down, then another, and another. Some do that and then don’t even make a selection. They wander away.

Some have questions: “Does that have chocolate in it?” “Which is the biggest?” “Are all the treats two tickets?” Yes. “Even this one?” Yes. “This one?” Yes.

Dozens and dozens of kids ponied up their two tickets per treat and only two kids, as far as I could tell, tried to swipe treats. They were not good at it, and seemed to enjoy the pushing of an adult’s button more than the potential of nabbing an extra cookie. Maybe there were ones who were good at it who I didn’t catch, but I don’t think so.

The Fall Festival had been billed to me as a sugar binge fest, an over-the-top avalanche of junk falling on our children. But that’s not what happened. What happened was that every kid who bought a wristband for unlimited games and bounce houses got five tickets for treats.

Treats were two tickets a piece, and popcorn was one ticket. So basically unless a parent ponied up for additional tickets the kids could get two treats plus one small bag of popcorn at the bake sale.

And treats were like, a cookie, a small brownie, a chocolate-covered pretzel, a cupcake. Not too huge, but definitely a treat. Amidst all the home-baked goods one family brought bright orange Halloween themed Dunkin Donuts and those went first. The donuts were big and they were bright, which seemed to be what attracted the kids most.

The adults knew better. They went for the small, dark squares of fudge. The items that looked boring on the outside but were going to deliver a lot of treatness. Ax went for a sugar cookie, and a cupcake he ate only the icing from, and a third of a bag of popcorn. He was too busy in the bounce houses to even notice the cakewalk. He was thrilled, and so was I.

Maybe next time I won’t need to be so nervous. Maybe next time I’ll have a bit more faith that we will be able to navigate whatever comes our way. I’m glad it was a fabulous day, but if it hadn’t been we would have been okay too. I’m gonna keep going.