Competitive much?

You might not know this about me, but I have a fairly healthy competitive streak.

**Somebody sound the understatement alarm!!**

Most of the time this is a good thing because it keeps me on my toes and motivates me to do my best in most things. But every once in a while it rears its ugly head in ways that are totally inappropriate and yet hilarious in their inappropriateness. Yes so, that is TOO a word.

Take, for example, the canned food drive at school last month. I'm all about helping the poor and downtrodden, the less fortunate, the needy, the underprivileged among us. But when they announced that the class which donated the most cans for Second Harvest would win a prize, you better believe I was raiding the pantry and giving my students tickets for each can they brought in. What was the prize, you might ask? I don't even know. I just heard that there WAS a prize, and I knew I had to win it.

Of course, I didn't . That darn Mrs. Sanders won it because her class wins everything and I want to BE her when I grow up. She totally rocks.

Yes, I realize how sad and pathetic that makes me sound. That's why I'm blogging about it. The first step to healing is admitting that you have a problem, right?

I'm collecting all kinds of things for my classroom with the passion and fervor of a religious zealot, in hopes of winning some kind of contest for my class: Box Tops for Education, Campbell's Soup Labels, pull tabs from Coke cans...you name it and I'm pimping for it. This week at school we're having a newspaper drive and I'm sitting here scheming ways to get more newspapers. I emailed my best friend to see if I could send my husband to collect her papers and old phone books to add to my class's stack. Because that's just how desperate I've become in my need for my class to win something.

Anything. I just want to hear my class's name over the intercom and smell the sweet smell of success for a tiny little while. Is that too much to ask?

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish my report cards. Because I want to be the first one in my grade group to have them done.

Oh snap, I really need a twelve step program, don't I?

***Updated to add: My class came in third place in the newspaper contest, so it was announced on the intercom. My sweet husband drove across town to bring me a stack of newspapers and phone books, but he got there after the final inches had been counted. Not that it would've made any difference...the first and second place classes were DOUBLE my inches of newspapers. Sigh. I'm never going to win anything. Wait, there's always the Campbell's soup labels contest...