Going Broke In the Month of May

I called Cabarrus Bank and Trust yesterday. “I need a loan, quick!”

“No problem Mrs. Rinehart. 15 or 30 years?”

“One month. Just get me through June.”

“You waited to buy teacher gifts until the kids were home on a holiday, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Now I know why Memorial Day wasn’t declared a snow-day make-up. The teachers lobbied the school board members knowing the parents would get a preview of summer vacation right before school was out and therefore appreciate teachers even more.”

Naturally, being the brilliant women that we are, the Bus Stop Mommies had discussed gift strategies two weeks ago. We also discussed how the month of May seems universally chock-full of gift giving opportunities. Everyone at our corner had the following on their May calendar:

Wedding Anniversaries — for all those people who avoided the June crunch.

Birthdays — Not sure what there is to celebrate in September, but with all the May birthdays, there must be something (like school starting again). I have seven family and two friend birthdays on my calendar. Another mom at the bus stop has fourteen.

Confirmation and First Communion — it’s that time in many church calendars for some more sacraments of initiation.

Graduation — elementary school, middle school, high school, college, dance and piano recitals. If it’s May and you’re enrolled in something, there’s probably a graduation for it.

Even if you somehow escaped having to buy for family, friends or tae kwon doe graduation, if you’re a Bus Stop Mommy, you’ll have teacher gifts. So there we stood in the early morning drizzle, our heads spinning over the possibilities, forming a cloud of caffeine-deprived fog over the corner. We take seriously the ability to honor our teachers and still pay the June orthodontist bill.

How much do you spend? Is a gift certificate appropriate or should it be an actual wrapped gift? How do you know which store/mall/restaurant to use for the gift certificate? Is cash tacky? How much? What if you already gave money for a class/group gift?

How do you narrow it down in middle school when one kid could have ten teachers? What if you have more than one child in middle school? And is Liz, God bless her, going to collect money for the bus drivers again this year?

What if our kid’s teacher should be transferred to work at a correctional facility full of felons who finally cracked under the pressure and attacked the teacher who humiliated them in front of their peers? They don’t get a gift, right?

“Only if it’s a one way ticket to Antartica!” muttered Jill.

“I’ll give my Starbucks budget for that one,” added Claudette.

My husband doesn’t understand all the stress and hoopla we go through over teacher gifts.

“We made our kids brush their teeth before they walked out this door every morning of the school year. Wasn’t that enough?”

Karen Rinehart is a magazine humor columnist, public speaker and the creator of The Bus Stop Mommies, a newspaper. She is also author of Invisible Underwear, Bus Stop Mommies and Other Things True To Life. You can read more of her work at karenrinehart.net. Karen lives in Concord, North Carolina with her two kids, one husband and goofball dog, where they attend St. James Catholic Church. (Well, they leave the dog at home.) She enjoys hearing from readers across the States and as far away as Australia, Japan and England.