Hello, I'll be your lunch mom today.

Wednesdays are lunch mom days.  I stand scowling in front of 21 highly articulate, devious, well-heeled know-it-alls and try to prevent them from destroying their classroom in the 19 minutes we dedicate to peanut butter and jelly mayhem.

I debated how to play these half hour displays of volunteerism. I thought maybe I'd be the cool dad who only steps in when the flames are creeping toward the fetal pig storage bins; I thought maybe I'd be the funny dad who tells hilarious stories and knock-knock jokes hat are just on the verge of inappropriate, just enough to make them think you think they're thinking; I thought maybe I'd be the wise, erudite elder, sitting buddha like at the front of the class dispensing brilliant bon mots, changing lives. But I'm not any of those.

I'm exactly the same guy  I am at home when the boy's asked me for the mac like the four hundred and sixty-seventh time and I lose my self control and embed it in his forehead like a crushed keg tossed off by Andre the Giant.  I'm . . . cranky.

This bothers me a little as I wonder where it comes from. I have, in the past, been the child dazzler. I was famous among four year olds in my previous career as a middle manager at a cavernous bookstore where I did the Friday night storytime. Seriously--it was standing room only. And I have had to swerve off the side of the road while carting scouts home from camp because I made them laugh so hard they were about to ruin my upholstery. I can make kids laugh. I can entertain. I could be the Chris Rock of lunchroom moms. But I'm not.

I'm the guy in the picture up there. Why? I think it's Wednesdays. I'm the Wednesday lunch mom. Wednesdays are hump day from way back and by 11:30 on Wednesdays I've had just enough time after dropping off Dr. Whines N. Ces'antly at school, to grab a shower, finish my coffee and get into a project just enough to develp a little wind which I then have to let out of my sails so I can go play sheep herder for the sixth grade.

When I get back, I have to start all over. I have to get the coffee, re-open the project, and worse, somehow wrestle my original train of thought back into submission so I can get it down on paper and get paid.

So being a lunchmom, precious and altruistic as it is, wrecks my day. I don't know how people with real jobs do it. I saw one mom furiously texting on her blackberry because she's in the middle of a big real estate deal (probably the only person in the United States who is in the middle of a real estate deal) and had to break off the meeting to come utter such prestigious chestnuts as "Do NOT chase the ball into the street!" and "Please do not throw candy through the open window of the first grade, McCorski!" Tell me a 1.9 million dollar contract can compete with that.