Does it Ring True?

Alex came home the other day with an envelope full of new ways to spend money. Guess what? It's time to order your high school class ring! Hurry - don't miss the opportunity to fork over up to $450 for a memento of your best years (?) which you will probably lose two days after you graduate and not give a rat's behind about a week after you graduate but the school gets a kick back so order now or you will join the big bunch of unpopular loser kids who can't afford it and are destined to be losers and failures the rest of their lives! OK, that wasn't the verbatim marketing message on the envelope, but that's pretty much the truth of the message. I mean really. Ordering a very expensive ring as a sophomore is just a bad idea. And it's just one more way for the school to reach into my pocket. I'm all for properly funding schools - but do it through taxes and not the incessant extra-curricular fund raising nonsense. I don't want any more wrapping paper, cookie dough, magazines or candles. If the schools really need money then call up our elected representatives and have them do the work to get it and quit asking the students to go begging! It sends the wrong message and the schools who need the money the most have very little chance of getting it like this. And I'm tired of being blamed for being the cheap skate bad guy for telling my kid no, I'm not paying for a class ring and I don't think it's a good idea for you to either. But if that's what Alex ultimately decides to do with his own money, that's his decision. I just hope he'll still have it in 2010.