Rebels with a Very Good Cause

I heard an interesting announcement at one of my high schools today: Starting this week, a most unusual fundraiser for the March of Dimes will be held. Not only can teachers buy the chance to wear blue jeans for around three weeks in a row, but students can also buy their way out of various components of the dress code for the week after spring break. It pretty much goes like this:

• For two dollars, students can buy a sticker that allows them to walk around with their shirts untucked for a day.


• For another two greenbacks, they can buy a sticker that clears them to wear a cap to school for a day.


• For another two smackeroos, they can buy a sticker that lets them wear pajama pants to school for a day.


• For another two bucks, guys can buy a sticker that exempts them from shaving for the day, and for ten bucks, they can buy one that gets them out of that for the entire week. Since spring break starts at the end of school on Friday, that means that a $10 donor could conceivably go unshaven for over two weeks.


• For an amount which escapes me at the moment (hey, it was Monday morning, so I'm allowed a bit of ADD), teachers could buy the rights to wear blue jeans for a three-week period.

(If I'm understanding this right, combinations are allowed, so someone could plunk down $16 and, on one given day, go around unshaven, with an untucked shirt, wearing pajama pants and a cap. In other words, they'd look like....college students.)

I think this is a really creative idea, and I'm sure it'll be quite effective at raising funds for a great cause. As you know, I'm no big fan of strict dress codes as it is (I've posted about this on several previous occasions), so maybe they could even expand this idea: Pick a new charity every week and replicate this campaign on a regular basis. The school's charitable giving would go through the roof, and maybe, just maybe, they'd find out in the process that the school didn't go to hell in a handbasket when some of these specific rules got relaxed.

A little too many shrimp on the barbie, perhaps: Australian toilet manufacturers are having to reinforce the seats on their newest models because, evidently, Australians are getting too fat, just like over here. I'd like to hear feedback from James on this one. (Oh, and James, I promise to do a new AAF post or two over my spring break next week.