Popular

As a child and teen, I honestly never aspired to being popular. Which is fortunate, as popularity soundly eluded me throughout my formative years.

But today I experienced my first taste of it. And it tasted goooood.

I helped coordinate a Valentine's Spaghetti Feed for the entire fifth grade at the elementary school. It wasn't much work thanks to email and several ambitious pasta-cooking mothers. In fact, I didn't even have to provide an entree for the event because we had so many volunteers. I did, however, offer my services for setup, cleanup and serving food.

I admit, I did have to do a little pushing and shoving to work my way through the crowd of over-eager mommies who showed up to help out while secretly spying on their socially-budding fifth graders. I bee-lined for the alfredo sauce, seized the ladel, and waited. When the throng of pre-pubescents formed a ragged line and started politely (surprisingly!) asking for pasta, the spotlight instantly turned on me. Fetuccine alfredo is apparently the bomb.

I was a mad woman. Ladeling left, ladeling right. The students eyes watered in anticipation of the much-coveted suicide sauce (do you have any idea what the fat content of alfredo is!?). I didn't work up a sweat, mind you, because that would be undignified, and popularity demands dignity. But I was one busy beaver and drew more attention, received more genuine gratitude, and ladeled faster than any other mommy there. Doesn't that equate to popularity? I even saw my friend Amy throw me a few envious glances while she stood idly by her massive bowl of largely untouched marinara sauce.

I had my moment of glory, but sadly, it ended all too soon. Whoever provided the alfredo sauce hadn't anticipated its popularity (such short-sightedness!) and I was left with an empty bowl and a dirty ladel halfway through the event. I busied myself by trying to one-up Debbie's puppy-problem tales (you see, Debbie had nothing to do, as she was in charge of the salad. What half-intelligent fifth grader asks for salad when their mom isn't there to make them eat it?!).

Afterward, as I savored the memory of glory, I was absent-mindedly carrying empty dishes back to the teacher's lounge when I was attacked from behind by my first-grader, Kalli. I plopped the dish down on a nearby table and seized her in a bear hug.

Now THAT's my kind of popular.