A Good Omen?

It's 6am Friday, August 17 and the fog is in. It's cold enough for me to think, "Today I want a hot cuppa." This chai tea sounds good. Black tea with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger... the first sip hits me. It's AUTUMN. OMG. It's autumn already. Ok, technically it's not autumn yet. We have yet to even hit our Indian Summer here but at this moment, it hits me. School has started. Band Season is in full swing.

Today is the first RHS football game of the year. The band always plays home game halftime shows if they are available and the RHSEU Boosters are granted two games a year to run the concession stands, both Home and Visitor side. This is a fundraiser where all proceeds come back to the band. RHSEU Booster members/parents buys all the supplies, food, and provide all the work. Yesterday was the Prepping of the Stands. *Cue ominous music*

I'm a junior parent now so let me tell you before I opened that door to the Home side concession stand, I was dreading it. In fact I had been dreading it all week. Last year, and the year before, cleaning that stand was, to put it bluntly, disgusting. We are usually the first of the season to use the stand. I have no idea who was the last to use it...but YUK! Sticky floors, grubby counters, old condiment bottles and whatever left in the fridge, fridge kinda mildew-y, also fridge shelf broken, crusty sinks...did I mention the smell? Can we say EW?! You can understand as I stood there with the key in the lock I braced myself for the worst. Some of the other parents there who hadn't done this before probably couldn't appreciate my surprise with what greeted us. I'm sure I even gave a little gasp.

The stand was CLEAN. For the most part it just needed a little wipe down, a quick sweep, a light mopping. And the fridge, Oh the fridge! Bless whoever used it last. It was clean. Empty. Odorless. Even the shelf was firmly fixed. For me the light shining through the doors and windows was like Golden Rays from The Heavens. You think I exaggerate. It was THAT gross previous years. I can't speak for the Visitor's side. That stand is a lot smaller but can get just as grubby. I hope the volunteers on that side had good luck like we did. I totally forgot to ask them (Feel free to leave a friendly comment if you were there!) Photo is of the stand after we cleaned and started stocking. I was in too much shock to take an initial photo I guess. And I'm sorry to whomever's butt that is sticking out from the fridge. Hehe. 

The parents who came did a wonderful job of tidying up and stocking the stand - please forgive me I did not get a photo with ALL the parents who were there, just know we appreciate every single volunteer. Today the students will bring down the rest of the supplies and set up the hot food tent nearby. The grill will fire up. Booster members/parents are scheduled to arrive for various shifts from 3pm all the way to 11pm.  Hopefully it will get chaotic because that means there's a lot of customers.

I'm going to take the clean concession stand as a good omen and maybe this good luck will even lead our RHS Mustangs to victory!

--Article Contributor - RHSEU Volunteer--