Last Date Ever, The Continuum

She cried all the way back to the church where the other were all ready busy. Partly the tears were for what she was feeling and partly due to the violet rose he had given her, the one that lay on the front seat next to her. She was allergic and would have thoughtlessly tossed it out the window, but he might ask about it later. He knew she would have preferred a red flower, but it was not in him to jousle the other boys in Mrs. Vallene's fifth grade class for one. He was after all, a gentle men. He had the manners test with a passing score that had enabled him, his date, and his mother, to attend the formal luncheon.
Her face was dry by the time she wound her way through the maze of corridor's in the church's addition toward the source of the fish smell emanating from the back. Out of the black dress and into an apron she changed. The heart of the church was busling with activity and she jumped right in to the white haired foam sea of Lutherns. When she had called to volunteer at the Swedish museum's fundraising lutifisk feed, she had expected a plating of maybe one hundred, tops. Not the six hundred they were expecting. But she had help. At any given time she had ten church ladies, and a handful of guys, most who had been cooking longer than her and her son had been alive, at her disposal. She could taste the excitement in the air, as she rolled the meatballs and listened to her crew chatter. The girls were excited, the naughty bads were late.
The naughty bads where the volunteers who did not want to volunteer, but the state demanded social service time from them for there wrong doing. The naughty bads would bring an excited gleam to the old girls eyes, as with them they brought danger into the basement.
When the county bus arrived, bringing a melting pot of flavor into the kitchen of rice pudding, things happened. The ladies grouped closer together around the wash tub of ground meat they were forming into meat balls, purses now cluthched at their elbows. Talk turned from guessing what the crimes of the soon be be help were to the weather. Sharp knives were hidden. Curious glances behind cataracts where stolden.
The non volunteer volunteers were to do the dirty work. The sweet women turned into dictator's. Pots were saved as a penance to scrub. (See that tape there on the bottom? That's my name. Sylvia Swenson. Make sure that kettle gets back to me.) Garbage hauled. (Out to the back dumpster. But don't smoke back there. We had a fire last year.) Potatoes and rutabagas to be peeled. (No, I'm sorry honey. That's the only peeler we have. Dull old thing.) Extention cords unwound and heavy tabled to be set up. (Not too many plugs into one outlet ok?)
Thing were running smoothly, too smoothly up to coffee time. When it was decided they had all earned a break and a cup of coffee, the crew broke out the one secret tradition she was unaware of. Dark hour. Brewing the coffee would blow the fuse. Blowing the fuse would cut the lights in the kitchen and shut down all food production. The non vol's naughty bads would be at the church girls mercy. The girls would seize this time, and a hot cup of coffee to minister to their captive audience.
"Yes I do attend a church Sylvia, just not this one", she told her eager new old friend. "May I have my purse back now? No it is mine there on your arm. Feel inside, you'll find my cell. I need to call my boys."
She felt around the dish shelves to the back area where the only small window was for better phone reception while she made her calls. The volume of her phone was drowned out by a loud and constant crunching sound. It came from the area she had left the young non vol perched on a stool to peel the bin of potatoes. The volunteer was eating the raw potatoes like apples in the dark. She backed away and stood by self in silence and just listened to the multitude of conversations occuring around her.
She, herself had eating a number of potato and bread sandwiches for a meal during her salad years but had never been so hungary as to eat an uncooked potato.
Miraclusly, the power was turn on in time to throw the food in the oven, and dinner was to be served on time.
"Excuse me", she told the nappy haired young mother with the peeler by the window. Can you please help me cut the desersts in the other room?"
She wasn't supposed to feed the volunteers. But she knew spice cake beats a tuber.
Her sons finished up the cleaning.
They all needed each other.