1. The saga starts when you're included on an email chain that asks you to bring something.
2. The night before you have to furiously bake or else bring something store-bought and risk other parents' judgment.
3. Of course you don't have ingredients at home, so you have to drag all of your other kids along, kicking and screaming.
4. And meanwhile a constant loop of all that you're not getting done at home or at work is running through your head.
5. Once you're at the event, you expect that at least you'll get to spend quality time with your kid.
6. But you end up either embarrassing them...
7. ...or not seeing them at all.
8. You have to make small talk with other parents whom you don't know very well.
9. There's generally a huge amount of running around involved.
10. At some point, you're always put in charge of something that you have no idea how to handle.
11. And by the end of the event, everyone's fully exhausted.
12. But in spite of all the hard work, you know you'll do it again.
