I figured out at least part of the reason why I'm so tied up about this "Day of Service" thing. And it's a stupid reason, but there you are.

There's a member of my group who has a history of acting kind of snarky when I don't have time to do certain things. This is someone that seems not to get the concept of what it is like to work full time PLUS do regular volunteer work PLUS be solely responsible for cleaning your own house, mowing your own lawn, doing laundry, etc.
(She once said to me: Can't you just get your cleaning lady to come a day early? about something. Um, I have no cleaning lady.)

This is the person who once said to me, when I was requesting the sole evening slot of some volunteer work because my class schedule prevented me from being free to do any of the daytime slots, "Gee, maybe *I* should get a job...then I would have an excuse to not do volunteer work"

What the HECK, lady? Seriously, what the HECK?

I had absolutely no intelligent way of responding to that. I suppose she thought, in her head, that it was funny, but I was frankly pretty offended. (And I don't offend easily).

Because I work HARD. I do not try to "get out of" things. It's just, some weeks, I am so busy that I can't do everything people might want me to do.

And, as I said, I don't know how to respond productively to comments like that. I suppose I could follow the advice I sometimes give other people and very neutrally, very unemotionally, ask her, "What do you mean by that?" to try to subtly call her on what she said.

Though more often than not, I let those kinds of things pass. (And frankly: it was an evening meeting, it was about 8:45 pm, I had an 8 am class the next morning, and I'd been up since 5, so "defending my honor" in that way didn't feel worth the extra 15 or so minutes at that point).

The thing is, I'd never say something comparable to someone else. I'd never suggest a stay-at-home mom didn't work as hard as I do (because they do work as hard, and in some respects, harder). Or I wouldn't snark at a retiree wanting to enjoy their time off (Oh, I might complain in private about the "80-20" rule - that 80% of the work seems to be done by 20% of the people, and getting the remaining 80% of the people to pick up the remaining 20% of the work is probably not worth the effort).

But I admit, this is one of those situations where I kind of fail at human interaction. I think it's in part from dealing with too many years of "mean girls" in school - I feel blipped back to seventh grade when someone makes a comment like that.

So the sad thing is, I'm actually considering doing something I might otherwise not do just to avoid a snarky comment from a person who shouldn't matter.

And the other sad thing? Driving home this afternoon (when the thought hit me), I realized (in light of the animal-behavior lecture I gave in Ecology the other day), I could respond more productively if she and I were both dogs: I'd walk over to her, grab the scruff of her neck in my teeth, growl a little, and then walk away.

So I don't know. Unless a wonderful opportunity presents itself between now and Friday, I think I'm going to hold off until the town trash-off day (which happens, anyway, before our next meeting) and do that. Because I was going to do that anyway.