Okay, so now I have reassurance from total strangers that no, I am not in fact the winner of the coveted Worst Homeschooling Parent Ever award.
From something one fantastically funny entrant said, I'm worrying that I came across too strong with the whole "don't make the kids look bad" thing. So let me quickly redefine.
A great friend of mine confessed the other day that she'd brought her six-year-old daughter to some reading/writing tutoring program offered free at her local library. The tutors are volunteers, great with the kids, and everybody has a good time.
So the tutor who'd been working with this woman's daughter thought it would be fun to teach her how to write her full name.
"What's your last name?" he asked the little girl.
"I don't know," the little girl answered.
"I was mortified," the mom said. "Oh, my God, I am a complete and total failure."
To me, this isn't a story that makes the kid look bad, because the mom's attitude was: Here I was living my life thinking that I was doing okay as a homeschooler, and it turns out I'm ruining my child's life.
If someone else told me a similar story, they might take another attitude. Something like: Isn't it hilarious what an idiot my kid is?
I would accept the first telling of the story as an entry; I'd reject the second one. Just because of the attitude of the reporter. To me, that's the real distinction.
My friend's story is an official Horrifying Homeschooling Moment, because although her dear good friends may temporarily lose bladder control on hearing it, we're not laughing (or being asked to laugh) at her kid. We're deeply relieved that we're not the ones it happened to; or we're admitting that we've had scarily similar incidents in our own lives. Or both. Probably both.
(Incidentally, I saw this same friend the next day and mentioned that I'd been thinking about the incident. "Oh, God," she said. "No, listen," I said, and proceeded to remind her that: 1. She and her husband don't have the same last name, so it isn't as if the child is a member of the "Jones" family -- there isn't a unifying last name that the little girl considers herself a part of, and there's nothing wrong with that; and 2. The daughter in question has an unusual first name, and is usually referred to by a particularly cute nickname. I'm changing her name completely here, but let's say she's usually called "Lee-Lee." And when her mom has to be particularly impressive -- if she really needs to get the kid's attention, since said kid is wandering into traffic or about to tumble into a well or something -- she just hauls out her whole first name: "Annaliese!" Which is enough of a change of pace to stop the kid dead in her tracks. Whereas I generally have to haul out two middle names, a last name, and a Roman numeral to get my kid's attention. My friend seemed convinced and relieved by all this.)
So. Hope this helps clarify what I bungled in expressing the first time. Basically, just send in anything that would tell us you got a low-twenties (or better yet, low teens) score on the Overachieving Homeschooler's Quiz. Which, if you need to take it again, can be found here:
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/003/quiz.php
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Okay, that's humiliating.
I am so sad.
I am not just the worst homeschooling parent out there.
I am apparently the only one who ever has a horrible homeschooling moment.
I haven't gotten one story yet. Not one.
Granted, I'm giving away issues of a magazine that have already been in circulation for a while. And most of the people who read this blog probably purchase the mag, too.
Still. I can't shake this feeling of being the only real bad homeschooler out there.
I'm the only one who has stories like this True Tale of Terror, which I wrote up in preparation to post on the Real Bad Mommies site (the site I last updated just after the ancient Egyptians put the last finishing touches of gold paint on the Great Pyramid of Giza):
My nine-year-old son heard about the concept of the "cuss jar" and gleefully danced out one morning with one he'd rigged up himself. It has a sign on it and everything. He insists that we keep it out in the living room, so everyone can see just how evil I've been.
The worst cuss jar moment came one morning when we were on our way out to a friend's house, where I teach some French to a few local homeschoolers once a week. I deserve no credit for this noble-sounding endeavor. I got elected teacher because I remember the most French from high school, and I don't have a dishwasher so I can listen to those French language tapes while I do the dishes every night.
I super don't deserve any credit for this, because I'm always getting on this one poor mom who comes late a lot, and yet I'm always late. Or, at best, screaming on the jagged edge of on-timeness. The class is on a Monday morning. I am not a Monday morning person. I am not an ANY morning person.
On this particular morning, we had run downstairs and out the front gate to the car lugging all the class stuff. We were already running late. I had a headache. And thanks to the fact that my car is falling apart and I can't spend a penny on it just now, I have to have my sunglasses whenever I go driving because I don't have the driver's side sun visor any more. It just fell off one day, and I couldn't get it screwed back in, so even on cloudy days I have to take my sunglasses with me, just in case.
And I didn't have my sunglasses today. They were out the garage door, through the gate, through the courtyard, up the stairs, and behind the double-locked front door. So we were going to be later than we already were. Damn it.
I didn't just think it, either. I said it.
"We have to go back up," I said to my son. "I have to get my sunglasses and put a quarter in the cuss jar."
Here's what freaked me out. My son, who'd heard exactly what I said and who once wanted me to deposit a quarter for saying that someone was an idiot, said, "Don't worry, Mom. Damn isn't so bad."
So then I had to explain (like I wasn't having a bad enough morning) that as a matter of fact, "damn" is one of the baddies and I'd better not hear him saying it at the park unless he wanted CPS to come and find him a new mommy.
Apparently nobody but me has great moments in homeschooling like this.
If you know anyone whose homeschooling halo has maybe slipped just a tad, and if he or she doesn't buy Secular Homeschooling Magazine but always loves a freebie, could you send them an anonymous tip about this little giveaway? (Assuming, of course, that you want to keep them as a friend. If you've been wanting to dump them for months now but just haven't been able to figure out quite how to do it, send them an email cheerily announcing that you're sure they'd win first prize in this contest.)
I am not just the worst homeschooling parent out there.
I am apparently the only one who ever has a horrible homeschooling moment.
I haven't gotten one story yet. Not one.
Granted, I'm giving away issues of a magazine that have already been in circulation for a while. And most of the people who read this blog probably purchase the mag, too.
Still. I can't shake this feeling of being the only real bad homeschooler out there.
I'm the only one who has stories like this True Tale of Terror, which I wrote up in preparation to post on the Real Bad Mommies site (the site I last updated just after the ancient Egyptians put the last finishing touches of gold paint on the Great Pyramid of Giza):
My nine-year-old son heard about the concept of the "cuss jar" and gleefully danced out one morning with one he'd rigged up himself. It has a sign on it and everything. He insists that we keep it out in the living room, so everyone can see just how evil I've been.
The worst cuss jar moment came one morning when we were on our way out to a friend's house, where I teach some French to a few local homeschoolers once a week. I deserve no credit for this noble-sounding endeavor. I got elected teacher because I remember the most French from high school, and I don't have a dishwasher so I can listen to those French language tapes while I do the dishes every night.
I super don't deserve any credit for this, because I'm always getting on this one poor mom who comes late a lot, and yet I'm always late. Or, at best, screaming on the jagged edge of on-timeness. The class is on a Monday morning. I am not a Monday morning person. I am not an ANY morning person.
On this particular morning, we had run downstairs and out the front gate to the car lugging all the class stuff. We were already running late. I had a headache. And thanks to the fact that my car is falling apart and I can't spend a penny on it just now, I have to have my sunglasses whenever I go driving because I don't have the driver's side sun visor any more. It just fell off one day, and I couldn't get it screwed back in, so even on cloudy days I have to take my sunglasses with me, just in case.
And I didn't have my sunglasses today. They were out the garage door, through the gate, through the courtyard, up the stairs, and behind the double-locked front door. So we were going to be later than we already were. Damn it.
I didn't just think it, either. I said it.
"We have to go back up," I said to my son. "I have to get my sunglasses and put a quarter in the cuss jar."
Here's what freaked me out. My son, who'd heard exactly what I said and who once wanted me to deposit a quarter for saying that someone was an idiot, said, "Don't worry, Mom. Damn isn't so bad."
So then I had to explain (like I wasn't having a bad enough morning) that as a matter of fact, "damn" is one of the baddies and I'd better not hear him saying it at the park unless he wanted CPS to come and find him a new mommy.
Apparently nobody but me has great moments in homeschooling like this.
If you know anyone whose homeschooling halo has maybe slipped just a tad, and if he or she doesn't buy Secular Homeschooling Magazine but always loves a freebie, could you send them an anonymous tip about this little giveaway? (Assuming, of course, that you want to keep them as a friend. If you've been wanting to dump them for months now but just haven't been able to figure out quite how to do it, send them an email cheerily announcing that you're sure they'd win first prize in this contest.)
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Another Shameless Giveaway: The Official Horrifying Homeschooling Contest
Following the suggestion of one of the many readers of SHM who is way smarter than its editor, I'm having another giveaway. This one is to celebrate the fact that I sold out of copies of issues #1, 2, and 3 at pretty much exactly the same time, so I had to run out to the printer and buy a bunch more. It's the first time that I've had to lug boxes of all three issues at once up the stairs, so I thought I'd share the pain.
It was suggested to me that entrants be required to answer a trivia question based on something from the magazine's site. I realize that I'm showing my shameful lack of business acumen when I say that rather than opting for something that has the potential to drive lots of people to my site, thereby making my advertising guru very happy, I'd much rather make my readers dredge up painful memories and share them with total strangers.
So here's the deal.
I'm having a contest.
As prizes, I'm giving away three copies of Secular Homeschooling Magazine. One each of issues #1, #2, or #3 -- winner's choice.
Issue #1 is the classic first edition, featuring The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List. Issue #2 has lots of great articles, including several about Charlotte Mason. Issue #3 is the latest, and has several really meaty articles, one about how to pull together your own secular homeschooling curriculum.
You can see more details about any and all of them, including full tables of contents and a few articles to read for free, at the magazine's web site:
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com
I'm also giving away an Ultra Grand Prize three-pack of issues #1, #2, and #3.
In order to enter this contest, please email me (don’t post them here) your name, email address, mailing address, AND:
your most hilariously horrifying homeschooling story.
Here, from a friend of mine, is a perfect example of the kind of thing I'd like to see. (This wasn't ME, okay? If you want true-life horror from my life, just check out the Real Bad Mommies site. Unless an anecdote explicitly mentions female children, of which I have none, odds are good that it's from my own hall of shame.)
"One time (ONLY one time) to illustrate an idea, I had my kids make little red flags out of construction paper and popsicle sticks, and when I purposely said something wrong, they would wave their red flags and get to correct me. Well, about 3 weeks later I finally rounded up the battered red flags (by now there were dozens of unauthorized copies) and told them if they waved one more red flag at me EVER again there would never be any more construction paper in the house till they were in college (frantic waving of red flags...till which of us are in college Mommy...all of us or just the oldest one? Do you mean all the colors of construction paper, or just red? Is card stock actually construction paper? Why aren't you going to take away the popsicle sticks, too?)"
This dear woman also once publicly admitted that she'd been giving her kids a lesson in social studies, and it wasn't until she'd been speaking for several minutes, mentioning one European country in particular, that her husband looked at her with a bemused expression and said, "Wait a minute -- Hungaria???" Seriously, I am the luckiest homeschooler in the world, having a gem like this as part of my park group.
Back to the contest. This probably goes without saying, but these should be stories that humiliate harassed, hardworking parents, not their (kinda) innocent offspring.
Also, if you send in a story, understand that I may print it either on this site or in the magazine, or both if I'm feeling particularly mean. You may specify that you only want me to use your first name, and you may change your children's names altogether (or ask me to). I'm not looking to ruin anyone's life here. I just want the chance to laugh at your pain.
If things work out all right, I'm going to be at a conference in a couple of weeks; so just to give me time to recover from that, and also to have a little time to get the word out about this, let's say that Friday, August 8, 2008 is the deadline for sending in your true tale of terror.
After that, I'll read through all the entries and make the difficult decision as to who really is the most entertainingly awful homeschooling parent out there.
I'll post the grand prize winner's entry, as well as the three runners up. If I get a lot of good stuff, there may be some Honorable Mentions posted, too.
Remember -- send these to ME. Don't post them as comments to this site.
Here's a useful description of my email address:
deborah at [but use the "at" symbol, not the actual word "at"] 2ds dot org
This contest is open to entry by anyone -- male or female, American resident or otherwise. I'm already broke from paying the printer; I may as well go bankrupt in style and spring for international postage, should it come to that.
May the worst homeschooler win.
It was suggested to me that entrants be required to answer a trivia question based on something from the magazine's site. I realize that I'm showing my shameful lack of business acumen when I say that rather than opting for something that has the potential to drive lots of people to my site, thereby making my advertising guru very happy, I'd much rather make my readers dredge up painful memories and share them with total strangers.
So here's the deal.
I'm having a contest.
As prizes, I'm giving away three copies of Secular Homeschooling Magazine. One each of issues #1, #2, or #3 -- winner's choice.
Issue #1 is the classic first edition, featuring The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List. Issue #2 has lots of great articles, including several about Charlotte Mason. Issue #3 is the latest, and has several really meaty articles, one about how to pull together your own secular homeschooling curriculum.
You can see more details about any and all of them, including full tables of contents and a few articles to read for free, at the magazine's web site:
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com
I'm also giving away an Ultra Grand Prize three-pack of issues #1, #2, and #3.
In order to enter this contest, please email me (don’t post them here) your name, email address, mailing address, AND:
your most hilariously horrifying homeschooling story.
Here, from a friend of mine, is a perfect example of the kind of thing I'd like to see. (This wasn't ME, okay? If you want true-life horror from my life, just check out the Real Bad Mommies site. Unless an anecdote explicitly mentions female children, of which I have none, odds are good that it's from my own hall of shame.)
"One time (ONLY one time) to illustrate an idea, I had my kids make little red flags out of construction paper and popsicle sticks, and when I purposely said something wrong, they would wave their red flags and get to correct me. Well, about 3 weeks later I finally rounded up the battered red flags (by now there were dozens of unauthorized copies) and told them if they waved one more red flag at me EVER again there would never be any more construction paper in the house till they were in college (frantic waving of red flags...till which of us are in college Mommy...all of us or just the oldest one? Do you mean all the colors of construction paper, or just red? Is card stock actually construction paper? Why aren't you going to take away the popsicle sticks, too?)"
This dear woman also once publicly admitted that she'd been giving her kids a lesson in social studies, and it wasn't until she'd been speaking for several minutes, mentioning one European country in particular, that her husband looked at her with a bemused expression and said, "Wait a minute -- Hungaria???" Seriously, I am the luckiest homeschooler in the world, having a gem like this as part of my park group.
Back to the contest. This probably goes without saying, but these should be stories that humiliate harassed, hardworking parents, not their (kinda) innocent offspring.
Also, if you send in a story, understand that I may print it either on this site or in the magazine, or both if I'm feeling particularly mean. You may specify that you only want me to use your first name, and you may change your children's names altogether (or ask me to). I'm not looking to ruin anyone's life here. I just want the chance to laugh at your pain.
If things work out all right, I'm going to be at a conference in a couple of weeks; so just to give me time to recover from that, and also to have a little time to get the word out about this, let's say that Friday, August 8, 2008 is the deadline for sending in your true tale of terror.
After that, I'll read through all the entries and make the difficult decision as to who really is the most entertainingly awful homeschooling parent out there.
I'll post the grand prize winner's entry, as well as the three runners up. If I get a lot of good stuff, there may be some Honorable Mentions posted, too.
Remember -- send these to ME. Don't post them as comments to this site.
Here's a useful description of my email address:
deborah at [but use the "at" symbol, not the actual word "at"] 2ds dot org
This contest is open to entry by anyone -- male or female, American resident or otherwise. I'm already broke from paying the printer; I may as well go bankrupt in style and spring for international postage, should it come to that.
May the worst homeschooler win.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Speech! Speech!
First off -- thanks to everyone who emailed about the Bitter Wish List poster. Not only do I get to give a freebie (and a few cheapies) a good home, I'm also getting a better idea of what people are interested in, so far as the content of the poster is concerned. The response was pretty much divided as to whether people preferred the succinct version or the old classic. Thanks so much for the feedback.
Thanks also for the suggestion of an SHM new-issue giveaway. If anyone has any ideas as to specifics of how that should work -- should I offer a trivia question to answer correctly? be like my favorite radio station and give the prize to the fourteenth person to get through? -- I'm thinking it might be nice to celebrate "I had to go to the printer for more copies of the mag because when I wasn't looking, I sold out of almost everything, including back issues!" Day, which will probably fall on this Tuesday the 29th, with a giveaway.
As long as I'm feeling grateful -- and between how incredibly kind, funny, and supportive so many complete strangers have been regarding the SHM enterprise, and the fact that I'm finally not feeling like I have to barf every minute of the day, I'm positively Pollyannaesque in my general gratitude -- I want to thank all the cool people who mention Secular Homeschooling on loops, boards, and blogs. Or bring it to park days so people can get a gander. This kind of thing has a huge cumulative impact. I can't thank you enough.
Okay, I'm feeling like I could bore a hole in this posting and watch the sap pour out, so I'll stop now. Just wanted to quickly add that I'm not religious, but a miracle did happen today: I found a gift certificate for a one-pound box of Sees candy that I somehow received and never redeemed. My husband and son are out right now picking it up. (I can trust them: my husband's allergic to chocolate, and my son doesn't like the kind I get.) I'm still just a little queasy, so I figure I might as well give my stomach a darned good reason for being a bit out of sorts.
Enjoy your Bastille Day Eve.
Thanks also for the suggestion of an SHM new-issue giveaway. If anyone has any ideas as to specifics of how that should work -- should I offer a trivia question to answer correctly? be like my favorite radio station and give the prize to the fourteenth person to get through? -- I'm thinking it might be nice to celebrate "I had to go to the printer for more copies of the mag because when I wasn't looking, I sold out of almost everything, including back issues!" Day, which will probably fall on this Tuesday the 29th, with a giveaway.
As long as I'm feeling grateful -- and between how incredibly kind, funny, and supportive so many complete strangers have been regarding the SHM enterprise, and the fact that I'm finally not feeling like I have to barf every minute of the day, I'm positively Pollyannaesque in my general gratitude -- I want to thank all the cool people who mention Secular Homeschooling on loops, boards, and blogs. Or bring it to park days so people can get a gander. This kind of thing has a huge cumulative impact. I can't thank you enough.
Okay, I'm feeling like I could bore a hole in this posting and watch the sap pour out, so I'll stop now. Just wanted to quickly add that I'm not religious, but a miracle did happen today: I found a gift certificate for a one-pound box of Sees candy that I somehow received and never redeemed. My husband and son are out right now picking it up. (I can trust them: my husband's allergic to chocolate, and my son doesn't like the kind I get.) I'm still just a little queasy, so I figure I might as well give my stomach a darned good reason for being a bit out of sorts.
Enjoy your Bastille Day Eve.
Friday, July 11, 2008
We interrupt this blog for a shameless giveaway
So I've been having a bad endo week -- the kind where you get to feel nauseated, dizzy and exhausted all day and night, and you have to explain to your friends that, no, you're not pregnant; your body just decided it would be a hoot and a holler to give you all the ick symptoms of pregnancy, but no surprise package at the end.
Bitter? Who? Never.
Anyway. So since all real think-work was out of the question, as well as anything that involved movement on my part, and since I desperately needed to feel that I had some worth as a human being -- that there is in fact a mind powering this bag o' symptoms I'm dragging around (or is it dragging me?) -- I decided to catch up on something I've only been meaning to do for about six or seven months now.
I finally got it together and came up with a comparatively short version of The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List, suitable for posterness.
I also got the original Wish List in all its glory typeset and ready to be plastered on some bitter-and-proud-of-it homeschooler's wall.
The printer I go to for the magazine whipped some of these posters up as easy as pie. Easier, since I didn't have to look at a galley or proof or anything like that. I just brought in the file and hey presto! there were the posters. 11"x17". Matte paper rather than glossy.
The price, however, is harder to calculate than the mag's. For the magazine, I buy a big box of el cheapo 9x12 envelopes -- $6.99 for a hundred -- so I barely have to nod at the cost when I'm reckoning up. Printing and postage are the hefty concerns.
The posters, however, require adorable little tubes to ship. If I order enough of them at a time, they're not horribly expensive; but they're significant. I could pay for a box of the abovementioned envelopes out of my week's grocery money and barely notice the dip. The tubes, though, cost actual money.
And the postage?
Who knows? You can't just go by weight. They're a funky shape. I'll be raging about this in another blog posting very soon, but the post office (and I say this with all apologies to sane and decent employees of same) has lost its mind when it comes to how much it costs to send something somewhere. Their web site is no help at all in this situation. For all I know, it'll cost seventy-five cents to mail a poster; for all I know, it'll cost five dollars.
The only way to find out is to actually mail one. Just march right up to the counter, brandishing my mailing tube like a particularly lame light saber, and demand that it be taken away. Where? I don't care! Just take it! (And tell me how much it costs to do that, okay?)
This is patently absurd. This is why that guy wrote Catch 22. (I know it was Joseph Heller. Don't ruin my flow here.) I can't post the joyous news that the posters are available for sale because I don't know how much they cost; and I can't know how much they'll cost until I sell one.
So I figured, well, fine. I'll mail one to myself.
Oh, please. I already have all the posters I could possibly want! I could paper my walls with them and have enough left over for a really bitter paper throw rug!
(Okay, okay. I could just go to the post office and demand to know how much, in theory, it would cost to mail a poster. It's just that I hate getting into that kind of conversation at our post office. It always seems to turn into something surreal and/or humiliating. "You want to mail this?" "Well, no. I mean, I might, at some point. I hope to. I think -- okay, you know how you have what you think is a good idea, and people say it's a good idea, and then, you know, maybe it pans out and maybe it doesn't, and you just don't know until you get there? So I'm hoping that someday, maybe really soon, I'll be mailing one of these -- maybe a lot of them! I mean, people said they liked them..." Profound silence, then: "So, you want to mail this?" I just don't want to go there.)
No, if I'm going to mail one of these, I'm going to do it right.
So: The first person with a United States mailing address to email me upon reading this posting can have a free Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List poster.
Here's what you do:
Email me directly. Don't post your email address here. That way lies pain and sadness and way more spam than you already get. No, email me at what this address would be if someone put it together into a working email address:
deborah at (not the actual word at, but that little "a" with a circle around it) 2ds (two D's, you know? My husband and I have the same first initial) dot org.
When you email me, please tell me that yes, you really really want a poster. Put words to that effect in the subject heading, just to simplify life.
Then specify which version you want. You can have the old-school whole-shebang every-word-of-the-original poster, or you can have the shiny new succinct version. (Since the whole point of this is to see what the cost of mailing one poster will be, I can't send you both. Sorry 'bout that.)
Then, when you get my email confirmation, please post a comment here, gloating shamelessly over your victory.
AND: both in the email to me and in your posted comment, please mention what your favorite item on the wish list is.
Just to make that part easier, here's a link to the list, as posted on SHM's web site:
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/001/bitter_homeschooler.html
After I get a winner, I'll offer the next three people who email me (and you can live anywhere in the world for this offer) a copy of whichever version of the poster they prefer, at cost. As soon as I figure out what that cost is.
Thanks for playing along with my silliness.
Bitter? Who? Never.
Anyway. So since all real think-work was out of the question, as well as anything that involved movement on my part, and since I desperately needed to feel that I had some worth as a human being -- that there is in fact a mind powering this bag o' symptoms I'm dragging around (or is it dragging me?) -- I decided to catch up on something I've only been meaning to do for about six or seven months now.
I finally got it together and came up with a comparatively short version of The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List, suitable for posterness.
I also got the original Wish List in all its glory typeset and ready to be plastered on some bitter-and-proud-of-it homeschooler's wall.
The printer I go to for the magazine whipped some of these posters up as easy as pie. Easier, since I didn't have to look at a galley or proof or anything like that. I just brought in the file and hey presto! there were the posters. 11"x17". Matte paper rather than glossy.
The price, however, is harder to calculate than the mag's. For the magazine, I buy a big box of el cheapo 9x12 envelopes -- $6.99 for a hundred -- so I barely have to nod at the cost when I'm reckoning up. Printing and postage are the hefty concerns.
The posters, however, require adorable little tubes to ship. If I order enough of them at a time, they're not horribly expensive; but they're significant. I could pay for a box of the abovementioned envelopes out of my week's grocery money and barely notice the dip. The tubes, though, cost actual money.
And the postage?
Who knows? You can't just go by weight. They're a funky shape. I'll be raging about this in another blog posting very soon, but the post office (and I say this with all apologies to sane and decent employees of same) has lost its mind when it comes to how much it costs to send something somewhere. Their web site is no help at all in this situation. For all I know, it'll cost seventy-five cents to mail a poster; for all I know, it'll cost five dollars.
The only way to find out is to actually mail one. Just march right up to the counter, brandishing my mailing tube like a particularly lame light saber, and demand that it be taken away. Where? I don't care! Just take it! (And tell me how much it costs to do that, okay?)
This is patently absurd. This is why that guy wrote Catch 22. (I know it was Joseph Heller. Don't ruin my flow here.) I can't post the joyous news that the posters are available for sale because I don't know how much they cost; and I can't know how much they'll cost until I sell one.
So I figured, well, fine. I'll mail one to myself.
Oh, please. I already have all the posters I could possibly want! I could paper my walls with them and have enough left over for a really bitter paper throw rug!
(Okay, okay. I could just go to the post office and demand to know how much, in theory, it would cost to mail a poster. It's just that I hate getting into that kind of conversation at our post office. It always seems to turn into something surreal and/or humiliating. "You want to mail this?" "Well, no. I mean, I might, at some point. I hope to. I think -- okay, you know how you have what you think is a good idea, and people say it's a good idea, and then, you know, maybe it pans out and maybe it doesn't, and you just don't know until you get there? So I'm hoping that someday, maybe really soon, I'll be mailing one of these -- maybe a lot of them! I mean, people said they liked them..." Profound silence, then: "So, you want to mail this?" I just don't want to go there.)
No, if I'm going to mail one of these, I'm going to do it right.
So: The first person with a United States mailing address to email me upon reading this posting can have a free Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List poster.
Here's what you do:
Email me directly. Don't post your email address here. That way lies pain and sadness and way more spam than you already get. No, email me at what this address would be if someone put it together into a working email address:
deborah at (not the actual word at, but that little "a" with a circle around it) 2ds (two D's, you know? My husband and I have the same first initial) dot org.
When you email me, please tell me that yes, you really really want a poster. Put words to that effect in the subject heading, just to simplify life.
Then specify which version you want. You can have the old-school whole-shebang every-word-of-the-original poster, or you can have the shiny new succinct version. (Since the whole point of this is to see what the cost of mailing one poster will be, I can't send you both. Sorry 'bout that.)
Then, when you get my email confirmation, please post a comment here, gloating shamelessly over your victory.
AND: both in the email to me and in your posted comment, please mention what your favorite item on the wish list is.
Just to make that part easier, here's a link to the list, as posted on SHM's web site:
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/001/bitter_homeschooler.html
After I get a winner, I'll offer the next three people who email me (and you can live anywhere in the world for this offer) a copy of whichever version of the poster they prefer, at cost. As soon as I figure out what that cost is.
Thanks for playing along with my silliness.
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