Towards the end of Tod’s third, and what will hopefully be his final year of pre-school, I accompanied him on a field trip.  The filed trip was sold as a visit to the “pond” behind the middle school.  I wasn’t too terribly excited about going on field trip with a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds and was a bit skeptical about an activity centered around visiting a body of water behind a school.  Ultimately I didn’t back out and the morning of the field trip Tod and I set off to meet up with his class mates.  Tod is in the Caledonia school system and I thought I knew exactly where the pond was that the event was taking place at, but when we got to where I thought we would be meeting there was only a group of three teachers who appeared to be gossiping and seemed annoyed by my presence.  So, I became more and more angry as I drove around between the high school and middle school trying to figure out where the pond was.  Damn you Shirley, you should have told me exactly where I needed to meet up with Tod’s class, this is all her fault.  Whenever something goes wrong I need a target for my anger, obviously nothing can be my fault, and it is completely healthy to direct my misplaced feelings of contempt upon some unknowing recipient.

I was really torn as to what to do in this situation.  Not being able to locate the class and the requisite pond gave me an opening to get entirely out of the field trip.  I suggested to Tod that we go get doughnuts instead, but he seemed to have his heart set on the trip to the pond.  I decided to do the right thing and park my vehicle so the two of us could go search for his classmates.  Unfortunately we found them, they were just getting started and had a bunch of nets to attempt and scoop creatures out of what was not any thing close to being a pond but was merely a swamp.  However, in the interest of drumming up participants in the field trip they made the right move by claiming we were visiting a pond.  Seriously, even the most faithful field trip attender would have reservations about blowing their morning going to the swamp behind the middle school.  I can be home watching the Kelly and Michael show (couldn’t ABC come up with a better name for that show?) or I can go look for disgusting creatures in a mirky body of water with a bunch of kids who eat their boogers and frequently make weird noises for no apparent reason?

What added insult to injury was the fact that Tod’s teacher told me when I arrived that she didn’t wait for us because she didn’t think we were coming.  We definitely could have opted for the doughnut route with no real repercussions.  I immediately new that I was in for a painful experience when I discovered there was nothing interesting that could be pulled out of this swamp.  They had been at for at least ten minutes before we arrived and nothing remarkable had been pulled out of the swamp.  I decided to grab a net and managed to pull out three tadpoles within five minutes of being there.  Yep, I’m the pre-school field trip equivalent of the crocodile hunter the only difference is I wasn’t dressed in khaki from head to toe.

The supposed silver lining to this thing was that there was definitely going to be a nice ratio of women to men on this field trip due to the fact that we were in the Caledonia school system.  My guess was that the Caledonia school system is chalked full of families adhering to the traditional family model where the mom stays at home while dad goes out to bring home the bacon.   I was absolutely right about that and the ratio was probably about 8 to 1, the unfortunate thing is there wasn’t a looker in the bunch.  Granted, I’m happily married and Shirley is the apple of my eye, but it never hurts to have a few attractive women think to themselves “who is that guy? I mean he’s not that good looking, but he’s here on a field trip with his son and his half hearted attempt at parenting is kind of cute, I really appreciate the way he tries to interact with his kid in-between checking his phone, he must be a keeper regardless of the fact that he has no hair.”   Women can get past the superficial stuff if there are redeeming qualities that are more than skin deep, guys can’t.   However, dealing the lack of talent was actually the least of my problems as we continued to forage through the swamp.  First of all, I grew bored after pulling out three tadpoles and was wondering when this debacle of a field trip was going to conclude.  No one seemed to be in a hurry to get out of there so I immediately began to prepare an exit plan until Tod’s teacher informed us that there would be a snack time followed by a trip to the high school to meet up with the FAA (Future Farmer’s of America).

Now I was forced to stick it out, not only for the snack time, but there was no way I could justifiably leave the field trip early if there was the possibility of a worthwhile activity rearing its ugly head.  Had we continued in the swamp I would have had no problems leaving because it was a complete waste of time, but hanging out with future farmers of America, that has potential, very limited potential, but potential none the less.  Ultimately, after a very disappointing snack of goldfish crackers and water (I thought the swamp was bad, but the snack was the equivalent of having to go to Chernobyl on a field trip) we made our way to the high school to meet up with the Caledonia’s future farmer’s of America.  They had a classroom with a green house and also a mini trout pond (a large hot tub like container with water in it containing fish that was quite cloudy due to all the fish poop in it making it difficult to actually see the fish).

The class was run by an instructor who was wearing cowboy boots and had an Oklahoma State Cowboys vanity plate on his Dodge Ram pickup. He had brought a couple sheep from home to sheer for the pre-schoolers.  In addition, each kid was able to pair up with one of the students and pick out seeds to put in a plastic glass filled with dirt to try and grow at home.  This was definitely a step up from the swamp excursion and didn’t cause me near as much anxiety because I knew it would be over once we planted our seeds and the sheep were sheered.  We ended up picking bean seeds even though the likelihood of actually having the seeds germinate was lower than being able to grow potatoes on Mars, we have a fish that is somehow still alive only through pure  luck, but if we have to be responsible for making something come to life it doesn’t have a chance.

The kids in the class seemed real nice and I immediately envisioned Tod and Ted somehow becoming loosely affiliated with the Caledonia chapter of the FAA so they could intermingle with these types of kids.  I ended up approaching the instructor after all the kids were done petting the sheered sheep (the sheep were completely loosing their minds, it’s one thing to be sheered but to have a bunch of pre-schoolers pawing at you afterwards, that’s insufferable)  and asking him about FFA.

“So, my names Jason I was actually a CFA, current farmer of America, I worked on a celery farm for three years.  It was the worst three years of my life.  You ever actually work on a farm?”

“I have a garden where I grow cucumbers, tomatoes, and green beans.  That’s about all it takes to get this gig, that and a pair of cowboy boots and a Dodge Ram, the school actually pays for my gas.  Can you believe I make 80 grand to teach a bunch of kids how to grow green beans and barber sheep?”

“It’s a great gig, I was kind of hoping my kids could somehow get affiliated with it, I don’t want them actually having to be a part of FFA, their mom would never let them actually do manual labor, they are a bit too soft for that and she would probably think farming is way too dangerous, but if they could somehow just hang out with the actual members of the FFA that would be terrific.  I’d even let them wear cowboy boots if that was what it takes, they could be honorary members, kind of like when some celebrity who briefly attended a college gets an honorary degree for not doing shit.  I feel like getting them in with the FFA crowd will keep them from becoming hipsters, Emo’s, or even worse, theatre dorks.”

“I’m not sure how we would actually be able to get them involved with the FFA without actually making them participate in the proscribed activities, we don’t really have honorary members of our group, it’s all or nothing, cowboy boots, dodge trucks, and confederate flag belt buckles.  Your kids are going to have to get their hands dirty if you want to keep them clear of less desirable social groups that kids typically gravitate towards in high school.”

“My only other hope is that they would become jocks, but you actually have to have an innate skill set if you want to get in with that crowd, and I’m quite certain my kids don’t have that skill set, however their mom’s entire family is comprised of gun toting Ted Nugent wanna be’s, what does it take to get my own organization started in this school? It could be an off shoot of FFA, Future Hunters and Meat Eaters of America, FHMEA for short, all you would do all day is shoot shit, I realize the anti gun nuts may have a problem with kids shooting guns at school, but I think it could be a real success.”

“Interesting, I love guns, and I have been looking for an excuse to put a gun rack in my Dodge Ram on the school’s dime, let me talk to our administration about this and get back to you, this thing takes off and I may be able to double my salary.”