To Join or Not To Join?

Okay, so the Kiwanis are trying to recruit me.

It all started so innocently.

I was sitting at my desk at work today staring into space. It's been a week where I have a lot to get done. My golf event looms a few months down the road and while I haven't been hurried, I've definitely been focused. Out of the blue, appears Mike - my Kiwanis buddy, and he announces he'd like to buy me lunch. It was lunchtime, I hadn't eaten and didn't know what I was going to do for lunch as I hadn't packed my lunch this morning.

All of a sudden, lunch with the Kiwanis sounded like a fabulous idea.

Let me just tell you, it wasn't as much fun as their holiday luncheon.

Mike led the way to the boardroom and got me seated. I then noticed that my boss has also been suckered into lunch by his boss. I say hi to my boss & my bosses boss, our CEO, and made a crack that I've joined the Kiwanis. They both laughed. Who knew my joke could potentially be foreshadowing?

Also, FYI, I wasn't going to write another blog post so soon, but my lasagna is taking an incredibly long time and cook and well, you get the idea.

So, back to the Kiwanis.

I haven't attended any sort of gathering that was so organized in decades. Silly me - I thought I'd get to sit back and watch the Kiwanis do their thing.

Uh, no. We were all ordered to stand, whereupon we sang a hymn. Yes, a hymn.

Okay, a little annoying, but I can live with that.

Then we had to sing the flag song. You know, the patriotic one.

That's when I realized how seemingly unpatriotic I am, since I don't attend sporting events or any other such occasions where one might sing to the flag.

I don't even know what the song is called. That's how much I'm not a joiner of anything recognizably organized.

Then we had to put our hands over our hearts and say the, you, know... whatever you call it. The declaration of independence? You know, what they make the kids say in school. I could google it for journalistic purposes, but that would make me look like I know something and I don't. I am frightfully ignorant and apart from whatever it is that good, God-fearing Americans do. The Pledge of Allegiance! It just came to me. It's scary that it took a good half hour to remember.

Then there was the prayer. Said by one of the Kiwanis members, a solemn man with a beard. He freestyled it, made up his own prayer. Everyone said Amen.

Now, while I have nothing against prayer, it's just one of those things that makes me realize how not religious I am. At all.

It's at times like these, it seems more than obvious that I'm an oddball.

While the Kiwanis seemed like a good enough group for me to spend my time with back at Christmas time, with their fancy buffet spread, I was now starting to feel like I was in an AA meeting.

I ate my lunch, which was kindly paid for by Mike, and then had to listen to a pitch from a representative from the local Leukemia/Lymphoma Fundraising Chapter. What saved me from being super bored, is that I was able to think about someone I know who recently lost her husband to Leukemia. I know, not super cheery thoughts, but it helped the time go by. Otherwise, I'd be staring at my hands.

As soon as her pitch was over, I was outta there.

But not so fast.

That's when Mike moved in. With his sales pitch.

He wants me to join their group.

So, to join or not to join? That is the question.

His angle is if I join, they will provide me with a list of 100 other Kiwanis group locations and then I can spend my lunchtimes getting people to sign up for my causes. Hmmmmm.

Not a bad idea. But do I really want to become one of them?

The jury is out on this one.