Dad’s going over the top for the school gala

It is well established the purest and most patriotic activity a New Zealander can undertake is being involved in their local school gala.

School galas are full of the good, honest fun that built this mighty nation and to attend one is to publicly commit to the sanctity of life, liberty and questionably cooked sausages.

I have not arrived at this understanding simply because tomorrow from 11am until 2pm at St Pius X School on Brooklands Rd in New Plymouth, my son’s school is having a gala.

Neither is this strident support of the gala a lame attempt to curry favour with the powerful home and school committee.

Nor, at the risk of overexplaining, is this column a way to assuage anxiety over my proclamation as the editor of the local newspaper that it would be a cold day in hell before we covered a school gala.

‘‘Imagine opening those floodgates,’’ I said with a look of genuine horror on my face.

It is absolutely, unequivocally, none of those things*. My rush of support for the gala is simply because my entire future self-worth relies on people coming. Lots of people. People with money.

Because somehow I’ve ended up manning a stall there and I must make sure I turn a profit or face the ignominy of being a failure in the one area of life where it actually matters.

Sure you can be a success at work, at home, and on the sports field, but until you’re top of the tally for stallholders at your kid’s school gala, you’re basically worthless.

Despite being widely marketed as a place to enjoy yourself, score a cheap square of homemade fudge and go eye-rollback crazy on meat pack raffle tickets, galas are actually all about making money. Lots of money.

This is necessary because without the money raised at galas most schools would resemble Soviet-era hostels.

There might be beds, but there’d be no sheets. There’s definitely a toilet, but it doesn’t flush and you can order whatever you like off the menu, but what you’ll get is a plate of boiled cabbage.

There are real benefits to letting children experience such privations and the Ministry of Education should be applauded for the outcomes their level of funding can provide.

Kids who grew up in the Soviet area of influence were, let’s face it, tougher, more resourceful and definitely more resilient. They expected nothing and nothing is what they got, every day. As a result of this a single unshelled peanut was enough to send them into rapture.

Kids these days are a different sort of beast. They are harder to please, easier to anger and forever an eye blink away from tears.

Like all parents I loudly lament the softness of the modern child to all who will listen. And yet I also do everything in my power to make sure they remain soft and untouched by life’s realities.

Most recently that hypocrisy has manifested itself in my gala stall. I have gone completely over the top in a misguided attempt to make enough money that my son never has to even learn the word Soviet.

In doing so I’m appalled to say I have followed the path of most Western charities and spent more on my money-making vehicle than I can ever hope to recoup from paying customers.

So far, my contribution to the St Pius X gala has benefited the shareholders of Bunnings and Bosch power tools much more than it will ever benefit the school.

It is also likely the contraption I built (a 1.5m high slingshot) to rake in money will inevitably cause at least one gala punter a hospitallevel injury.

So, thanks in advance to the taxpayers who pay for that $2000 worth of care there, and to ACC for the income while they slowly reintegrate back to work.

There is also the very real risk I will incur significant legal costs, being that I have flagrantly stolen the idea.

By even the crudest of calculations, my life-sized version of a popular computer game infringes 16 copyrights and nine trademarks.

I would be more specific about what I am infringing but that would simply invite an injunction and/or seriously damage our trading relationship with Finland.

While I am quite clearly not one to make broad, unprovable statements, it is probable my stall will end up costing this country in the vicinity of $25,000 and will, if it’s lucky, raise $67 for St Pius X.

I suspect that is actually a pretty good gala stall cost/profit ratio.

But whether it will be enough to propel me to the top of the tally board – well, that is up to you.

Kids these days are a different sort of beast. They are harder to please, easier to anger and forever an eye blink away from tears.