Voluntold

"Oh, by the way, you volunteered to cater for Talia's school bake sale this weekend."

Maria, in the middle of a valiant battle against ten classes worth of Final Essays and a list of who needed extra credit work to graduate, looked up long enough to raise an eyebrow. "I don't recall doing anything of the sort."

A wiser man would have taken her tone as the blaring warning sign that it was, but Maria's brother had never been the smartest of men. "Well, they needed volunteers, and everyone said they were busy, so I said we'd do it, but I have a game this weekend, so you need to help out."

There were some benefits to teaching high school English, among them the ability to sniff out bullshit, and creative use of the finer points of the English language. "In other words, I didn't volunteer; I'm being voluntold."

Maria knew the other involved parents at her nieces school; most of them were also teachers, and hadn't volunteered for the same reason she hadn't; marking season. Already, her phone was starting to blow up with texts asking if she was aware of what her brother signed her up for.

Fortunately, the school receptionists were also in the group chat.

Bless those absolute legends.

Maria stood up, stretching her legs. "Then you'd better get eggs and milk by Tuesday, and you're in charge of cooking for the month. I'm not doing both.