Mondays are my sweats-and-no-make-up day. The husband works late on Mondays, so I take the day off from appearances- of myself, my kids and the house.
So yesterday, a Monday of course, at 4:30pm my RS president called me. She wanted me to bring our blankets for donation (for Japan) to the church within the hour, because a television news crew was going to be taping. Our church was doing a massive drive for blankets and quilts to be sent to Japan.
(Later on the husband joked about how our RS president swindled me into doing this. But hey, when our RS president calls, you drop everything and follow orders.)
I looked at my kids who were looking a little rag tag from picking out their own clothes, and decorated with crayola marker and other marks of a busy childhood day.
I looked at my stacks of blankets, that weren't packaged for donation yet.
I didn't even bother looking in the mirror, because I knew what was there.
Since our project is about donating blankets to Japan, I decided to just work on those.
I did my make-up in the car, just in case I appeared in the groups of people being taped. I mentioned GROUPS, right?
I drive into the parking lot and there are two cars there. I start sweating a little bit but I drive over to the other side of the building, expecting to find all the cars of people.
Nope. I drive back to the RV that is collecting the blankets. I realize that if I park near it, my 19 yr old incredibly messy mom-car will be on TV.
I park faaaar across the parking lot.
When getting the kids out of the car, we realize that the dear blankie is at home. OH DEAR.
Both kids are whining that they don't want to be at the church, that they need the BLANKIE, want to use the water fountain, need the BLANKIE, want bishop's candy from his office, need the BLANKIE, it's too cold, don't want to wear their jacket, why are we here, what's taking so long… You get the picture of one of those whine episodes.
I emphasize that we're doing service… that the blankets might go to a little girl like them with no home or toys… etc. They've heard it all a 100 times this past week as we worked on this project. It doesn't have quite the same motivating factor anymore.
When the TV crew shows up there are 7 people in the parking lot, including me and my two kids. Uh, what? Apparently the whole idea was to tape us donating the blankets, not us and dozens of others.
Oh dear.
I must say that the kids did a great job for those 5 minutes that they handed off the blankets and notes. Whew.
When it came time for interviews they said, "We'd like to get you first."
Ah man, I was about ready to hide behind the RV with the kids and make a run for it.
Most likely they just wanted to get the noisy kids out of the way first, anyways.
30 seconds before my interview Mari takes my keys out of my pocket and stops whining.
But she is jingling them loudly. Truly fascinated in keys for the first time since she was a baby.
Admittedly, I should thank her for jingling those keys. It probably made most of my interview not TV worthy. Which is good, because my interview was far from eloquent.
For the next four hours I was a nervous wreck. I knew I hadn't said anything too great on camera, and I really didn't want to look like an idiot on TV.
15 minutes before the news, the husband is trying to work miracles on our bunny ears antenna. Obviously we don't have cable or dish, and I haven't watched the news in months… or years.
Luckily we were able to see the story, and my relief was quite obvious as they only showed one simple sentence from my interview. Thank you, FOX, for not making me look like a complete idiot.
The husband's comment afterwards: "It's really too bad that Mari had marker all over her face."
ACK!
(Here's the news segment, if you're interested.)
In the end, it was worth it. It was great PR for the church, and hopefully encouraged others to think of what they can do for the victims in Japan.
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