Friend #10

I don't like the "friend" I met today. I tried really hard to "appreciate the differences of others" and all the things Mom taught me, but this guy really has it wrong.
It all began this afternoon at Parent Pickup at Jackson's school. I noticed that almost all of the teacher's cars had really cool window stickers that said "Vote Yes on Prop 100, Your child is worth every cent!" (Back story: We're voting in May to raise - yes I said raise because it better pass!- taxes one cent for the next couple of years. 2/3 of that money will go toward education and the rest toward public safety.) I wanted one of those stickers really badly. I asked Jack's teacher who told me that one of the parents made them and that she'd love to get me one - yay!
I've been spreading the word, but man I'm worried about those anti-tax people.
Later at football practice I couldn't help but overhear - due to this guy's idioticly loud pie hole - two men discussing Prop 100 and the possible immigration reform. Don't you hate it when you see two grown men talking and one is obviously just screaming his overbearing opinions while the other man really doesn't know or care about anything and he's just smiling and nodding with his hands in his pockets? I do.
The loud man, as I learned later, is named "Trent's dad". He had his facts allll wrong about Prop 100 and when seeing the number of people overhearing this misinformation, I had to step in. I politely informed him that the money will NOT go toward giving "lazy teachers more vacation days", nor will it add more testing in the schools, or give Principals salaries comparable to Bill Gates's. The money will not be used to give teachers raises, but will prevent schools from having to lay off as many teachers. The money will allow schools to save the very few extracurriculars they have left. We will have a tiny bit of money to fix our broken desks and maybe, just maybe add some much-needed RAM to our 8-year-old computers which are each used by over 75 kids per day. The money will allow MY little school to keep the same eensy-weensy budget we had this year but if the Proposition does not pass, we will have a $100k decrease in budget. That's three teachers we may have to lay off. That means classes would increase from 35 students to 50.
Trent's dad asked if I had any proof of any of this. As a matter of fact, I did...in my car...30 feet away. Lucky for him and our audience of parents, I had just completed a 22-page report on how it would "help" (if you can call keeping things in the horrible position they've been in for two years "help") my school, and how it would harm us if it is rejected.
Raise your hands if you think Trent's dad opened my report binder and read my information. Nope. But then again, he probably can't read, due to all the "lazy teachers taking vacations all the time" in his life. Poor guy.
Poor Trent.