signed up.

My beloved husband, enthusiastic joiner that he is, volunteered us to help with the church picnic. I'm all for pitching in by bringing a plate of deviled eggs, but the job turned into us being in charge of organizing the food for the whole thing. I say "us," but in terms of organizational tasks, one of us is much stronger than the other (hint: it's the engineer, not the poet). So I've been doing all the emailing and strong-arming of more volunteers. He'll help carry and clean up, as long as it doesn't interfere with the other things he volunteered to do that day (read the lesson of the day and be in the band).

We've been members for less than a year, and somehow we are pillars of the dang community.

Luckily, being head of the Food Committee hasn't been too much work. One of my tasks was to set up an online form so that people could sign up to bring food. Not long after doing so, I listened to a conversation among church ladies who talked about how having to sign up for a potluck was just the worst, as the whole point of a potluck being that it's left to fate what you end up with. I absolutely agreed with everything they said. That's the whole spirit of the thing: if everyone shows up with a plate of deviled eggs, so be it! I am prepared to make the best of it.

But I've never organized a picnic before, and the copious notes from the previous years said to make the signup sheet. Supposedly, it would help us gauge how many people were coming. I did try to be leave room for chance by allowing people to sign up for "side dish" or "dessert" without forcing anyone to even say what they were bringing.

However, other church members must've had similar feelings about potluck signups, because only a few bothered to do by the week before showtime. We're supposed to go shopping for the burgers and hot dogs tomorrow, and we really have no idea how many people will be there Sunday. So it may be ten people and two hundred burgers. I am prepared to make the best of that, too.

Today, there were a slew of last-minute volunteers to bring unspecified side dishes and desserts (also, one person is bringing leftover ham). I'm relieved that it won't be just me and Josh, eating two hundred burgers by ourselves in the bounce house. The only thing is that people seem to be signing up pretty evenly for side dishes and desserts. So everyone will have a burger, one deviled egg, and four brownies. We'll make the best of it.