Light-hearted anecdote: Church Potato

Light-hearted anecdote: Church Potato…

Most kids don’t seem to understand schedules and time tables. For instance, why is it when they need cookies for a school activity, they invariably wait until bedtime the night before to tell mom.

I remember one particularly exhausting weekend when my son was small—he came to me and said, “I need a potato for Sunday school tomorrow.”  Or at least, I thought that’s what he said. I decided that the potato must be for a craft activity during Sunday school—you know one of those deals where you cut the potato into shapes, dip them in ink, and use them for stamps. My imagination filled in the blanks logically, right? Okay, maybe my conclusion was a stretch.

So I went to the pantry and selected a small, shriveled up potato I thought would make a great stamp. Later at church, I assumed everything went well with the craft activity. No one said anything to the contrary. After the service I heard there was a special dinner. And guess what? It was a baked potato meal given by the parents of the children.

Oh, dear. You guessed it. The potato should have been plural potatoes, and we were to bring them to contribute to a children’s department fund-raising dinner! I was so embarrassed I didn’t have the nerve to confess to anyone for several years. No telling what the other parents thought, and it was a long time before anyone asked me to contribute toward a meal. Ha! Later I told a friend about the incident, and she wondered if they thought they should take an offering the Gaus family because they couldn’t afford to purchase potatoes.

Pretty sad, huh? But I say, it’s just plain embarrassing! (o:

Karen Gaus