Another Thing I Love About Working Here

Working at Small College, as I do, means there's plenty of opportunity to support student fundraisers. This is a good thing, as opposed to elementary school fundraisers which tend to consist solely of opportunities to buy overpriced name brand stuff I would ordinarily buy in their generic versions. Wrapping paper. Cookie dough. Greeting cards.

I'm right, aren't I, parents?

By the time they're in college, kids are actually useful. Who knew? So fundraisers at Small College actually are worth supporting. Besides the warm glow of helping student go-on-trips/buy-new-warm-ups/attend-a-conference, there's an actual something-I-want attached. House cleaning, say. Or leaf raking, or bicycle maintenance.

A couple of years ago at an auction to help students go on a mission trip, I bid on an authentic Asian dinner. Then I forgot I had won the bid. (Chalk this one up for the win side of memory loss.)

Yesterday a lovely young Malaysian girl came in my office. "Do you remember when you bid on the Asian meal? Well, J and I put that up for auction, but J is going home this weekend. Could we bring you dinner tonight?"

Oh, the joy of those words. Let me repeat them once more just so you can savor their loveliness with me: "Could we bring you dinner tonight?" If Mr. Rochester had said this to Jane Eyre in chapter two, that book could have been a lot shorter.

Anyway, A and J showed up with a smorgasbord of Asian food, to mix a geographic metaphor. We had Beef Rendang. Stir-fry Cabbage. Papadam. Steamed Egg. Perfectly sticky Asian rice.

This was so the opposite of  the usual Wednesday night pre-meeting  fare in the MomQueenBee house (which is to say, "What kind of cereal do you want, Honey? You'll need to get it yourself.") that it felt as if we'd won the lottery.

The yummy, yummy lottery.