The Mystery Supper

I am like my mom in many ways, one of them being this: I get these big, creative brainstorms and then, for one reason or another, they never get carried out.

It all started with the School Auction. We have one here every year, see, and this year I was determined to contribute more than just food for the bake sale. (We won't go into the reasons behind that, that's another subject entirely!) A hot item at the auction in years past has been suppers - Thai Suppers, Hog Roasts, Barn Parties.....you name it!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I am not a cook. Cooking, especially for other people, gives me a bellyache. It stresses me, haunts me, torments me and makes me change my mind everytime I think we should have someone over. I wish I wasn't like that. I dream of being the spontanious, jolly, relaxed hostess, but there it is. I am not a cook.

So, sell a supper at the school auction? Out of the question. Period.

But, I have this creative, brainstorming mind that comes up with ideas and says them and gets me into impossible situations. See, what they should do is get the school children involved more in this stuff for the school auction. In fact, you know what would be really great? Sell a supper and have some of the children help serve it.... a Daffy supper or a Mystery supper...there you go! There's 6 girls in Jasmine's grade, we should have them help us serve a mystery supper! The idea flew out of my mouth and that's what got me in trouble - Chris got a hold of it, and *liked* it.

Not only did Chris latch on to the idea, he built on it - what we really should do is TWO Mystery suppers. One with the 5th grade girls and one with the 7th grade boys! I listened with alarm to his ideas and, in typical "Bethany" fashion, started back pedaling as hard as I could. No way! Are you crazy? Do you know how much work that would be?? Sell 24 tickets for each supper, are you out of your mind???

I'll spare you the details, but at the last possible minute the phone calls got made and the information given to the auction committee and we were committed: One Mystery Supper for 24 served by the 5th grade girls; One Mystery Supper for 24 served by the 7th grade boys served back to back evenings in November. The man in charge said it better than I could have when we told him, "Either you're really brave or a little bit crazy!"

I'll skip the gory details - the nights laying in bed going over details in my mind, the lists and lists, the frustration between husband and wife that may or may not have had something to do with my recent "10 things I know about marriage" post....... Wait. I said I would skip that part (trust me, that's a drop in the bucket)!

We ended up selling only half of the tickets, so we decided to combine the two suppers and do it all one evening. Thankfully, it suited everyone for Saturday, November 15 so Saturday, November 15 it was! And, guess what? We survived! It was even actually kinda...how can I say this.... I would have to say, if I'm honest, that I'm glad we did it and yes, it was actually kinda fun!

Chris was the Chef, I was the decorator. I made some of the food, yes, but he was in charge of all that. We did a slight twist on the Mystery Supper idea and mixed two different meals on our menu - a picnic meal and a formal meal. They had to choose between two clues for each item and the goal was to try to see how close they could get to a whole meal from one menu.

We used the church basement and had all 12 students come for the afternoon to help set up, decorate and play. They also planned two skits to do, one by the boys and one by the girls. If you've ever helped with a Mystery Supper, you know it got a little wild in the kitchen with 12 servers ages 10-12!! But we got it done and I think they all had fun doing it.

We all crashed into chairs when we got home Saturday night, exhausted, relieved and too tired to lift a finger. Except me. I proved that I'm like mom in yet one more way - I put practically everything away before crashing!

And that is the end of the story. Except the part about having a terrible sore throat and a stiff shoulder/neck and Charles keeping me awake for nearly 3 hours during the night which resulted in Chris waking me up at 10 til 9 Sunday morning and me and the littles staying home from church...where they were having communion, no less.....but we won't go into that, y'all don't have to know everything!!

PS. I'm curious how many of you noticed the mis-spelled word in the picture? Saturday night, after I finally crashed into a chair, I was showing pictures to Jennifer and Lillian and I suddenly noticed it!! All I could do was laugh. One of the girls had strung my banner for me and I never noticed and no one said anything about it!! Oh well. All's well that ends well.

The End