Oh my darlings, I am so terribly sorry that I've left you 5 whole days without any snark. But the real world has been rather a douche nozzle to yours truly. And here's what you need to know about that:
I belong to a rather large organization, that every year donates millions of dollars to children's charities, medical research, etc. It's a benevolent organization with many chapters across the US. Of course, every year we are asked to do so many fundraisers. One for this charity, one for that charity, you get the general feel for it.
Our chapter has an average membership age of 65 and an average household income of $25,000 per member per year. We have alot of elderly, retired and disabled people in our membership.
The young people coming in are outranked by the older generations. Their ideas are pooh pooed, they never get taken seriously and never get elected to office.
Several times people have been called at the last minute to ask if they can help pay a bill to keep the chapter's doors open. It's generally the younger set who step up to the plate. Despite all of the crap they take, they still care.
Well this past weekend, there was a barbecue contest. It's a big fundraiser, (Raising nearly $1,000! Woo Hoo! Let the miracles happen!) and people were there all day cooking and competing. The cans were flying, knives were chopping, minions were cleaning, and the smells throughout the place were really driving us all to distraction.
Finally, we'll call the team, Randy's Rangers, a young team full of experienced cooks and large benefactors to the chapter was waiting on the judging. Their area was flawless, their meat was by all accounts of all of the other teams around them (lots of sampling the competition mind you) the undisputed winner. The general public came in, and within minutes the Rangers had completely sold out of their barbecue.
The judges had long since taken their samples and everyone's sitting around waiting for the judges to come out, when the chapter presidents wife came out to announce the winners. 3rd place....given to a chapter officer, 2nd place.....given to a wealthy retired new member......
Then the chapter president's wife calls out, " I swear this wasn't rigged, but the winner is "Dirty Don's Old Socks Barbecue"! (that team compromising solely her husband).
The look of shock and the incredulous gasp from the crowd said it all. Don still had a pan of meat left. No one was eating it. However, people were gathered and pictures commenced to being taken right in front of the Randy's Rangers table. Several extremely pissed off cooks were admonished by their leader to "smile. just suck it up and smile." As it was announced that all of the winners were donating their winnings back to the chosen charity.
The leader of the Rangers showed immense class when congratulating all of the winners and smiling in the face of the president's wife. Their area was immediately cleaned, vacated and they went to sit with their friends, their supporters, who were almost half of the people in attendance.
Here's what that chapter doesn't know. Randy's Rangers, that are members, may continue as returning members to the lodge. But only to rent the facility cheaply. As far as sponsoring the 3 large yearly events, well, that's all revenue lost to the chapter.
And one final thing, that all or Randy's Rangers don't know. The chapter president's wife, well she kept going on and on about how it touched her heart that the winners would donate their hard earned prize money back to the charity. The leader of the Rangers, smiled, agreed with her and said, "Well, that was our intention too, in fact whatever prize money we won, we were going to contribute back to the chapter with a matching donation."
The look on that woman's face was priceless.
I just wanted all of Randy's Rangers to know that......they know who they are.
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