"You can bring the Doritos."

See, the thing is, I sort of fancy myself to be a rednecky Martha Stewart.

Ya know, minus all the tax evasion and jail time.

I make crafts that look like this:

I cook - FROM SCRATCH - meals that look like this:

Recipe coming soon.  I promise.

I decorate for holidays like this:

Just in case you missed it last time.

I make - and can - my own applesauce, jams, jellies, and other cool things.  

I also do a lot of other cool domestic-y things like sew and coupon and quilt and whatever.  I just don't have any photos of those things handy.

Anyway, when Z started school this year, my creative craziness kicked into high gear.  I would be the Queen of the Kindergarten Room Mothers!  I would WIN at holiday parties!  I would be AWESOME!!!

I may be just a TOUCH on the competitive side.

Once, long ago, RJ signed us up to bring corn to his holiday party at work. 

I was distraught.  "BUT YOU CAN'T WIN WITH CORN!" I wailed.

"Win what?" RJ asked me, clearly not understanding my passionate response to the corn situation.

"LIFE!" I screamed.  "YOU CAN'T WIN AT LIFE WITH CORN!!!"

Ahem.

Anyway, I waited and waited until it was time for the first party of the year - the Halloween party. I pinned a ton of cute stuff to Pinterest in preparation, then I waited.  And waited some more.  Impatient?  Who, me?

FINALLY, I got a note from the teacher asking for volunteers for the "Fall Party."  Call it whatever you want, it's Halloween.  In the note, she mentioned that in years past, there had been an abundance of sweets like cupcakes, candy and cookies, and she asked for some other options.  Ok, I can work with that.  I quickly checked my board for non-sweet options, and decided that I would go with either this:

 which I found on this cool blog

or this:

from the PBS site.

The note I sent back was wonderful in it's simplicity.  

"Dear Teacher, I would be happy to bring something for the party.  I could bring fruit or pretzels or whatever you need.  If I don't hear back from you I'll bring one of those things."

Oh, wouldn't everyone be surprised at how wonderful my simple little "fruit or pretzels" turned out?  Clearly,  I WOULD win at Kindergarten Halloween Party.  

The next day, I got another note from the teacher.  It read, in it's entirety:

"Someone is bringing pretzels.  Can you bring the Doritos? Circle yes or no."

Doritos?  DORITOS!?!?!?!?

If you can't win with corn, it's abundantly clear that you can't even place or show with Doritos.

So now what?

I ran to my computer, intent on Googling things like "homemade Doritos" and "Doritos Halloween crafts" but before I got there, I turned around, swallowed my pride, circled "yes" on the note, and died a little inside.

Then I went out and bought two giant family-sized bags of Doritos.

The party is tomorrow, and I'm sure zj and all the other kids will have a great time.  I'll take my Doritos, and the kids will eat them and not care one bit that they are not carved into the shape of bats or coffins or whatever.

But I swear, by all that is holy, if there is even ONE undecorated or unadorned cupcake or cookie in that room, the Doritos will hit the fan.