Manners luncheon is another matter, though. It’s a fifth-grade rite of passage where students, bejeweled and bedecked in their Sunday best, gather to feast and learn proper table etiquette. They sit at linen-draped tables while parents serve them a four-course meal, catering to every whim. Just like home. The children learn what it takes to behave in formal social settings, like how to pull out a girl’s chair without letting her fall to the ground or how to sip, not slurp, soup. It’s a gala for 10-year-olds, filled with life lessons that could come in handy down the road, like for those outings to five-star restaurants and middle school cafeterias.

I can see how Cat might benefit. You never know when she’ll be sitting next to some kid in the cafeteria who was absent on manners luncheon day. He’s eating Jell-o with a spork. “That’s soooo not Martha Stewart,” she might say, and then slip him a spoon. Good thing, too, because a faux pas like that would’ve sent that boy to junior high hell, lunching at the Blues Clues table where the kids write RE/LA assignments in handy dandy notebooks.

“Am I an escort? How about official photographer? Maybe I could bring a crock pot of meatballs? I’ll go out on a limb and cook weenies!”

“Um, no, got those covered. You’re on the wait staff. Sorta.”

She must mean I’m the maítre d’! Perfect. Telling people where to go comes naturally to the Contessa.

“You get to pour water and clear dirty dishes off the table.

The Contessa is a busboy?

The only thing worse than schlepping pitchers of water to kids who’d rather be drinking soda is scraping congealed cream corn off plates. At least I’d get to mingle with the fifth-graders.

“Not so fast, Contessa,” Merlotta said. “The PTA took a vote whether or not to let you near the children. You’ve been assigned the teachers’ tables.”

The only thing worse than schlepping pitchers of water to kids who’d rather be drinking sodas is schlepping pitchers of water to teachers who’d rather be drinking margaritas. Just to be funny, they’d have me fetching salt and limes. At least they tip. Sometimes.

“You can’t talk to the kids, either. Not a word.”

So much for mingling. Maybe I could try mime.

“Not even sign language.”

It sounds as if parents haven’t gotten over last year’s carnival raffle sales headed up by the Contessa. What’s the big deal having kids sell Texas Lotto tickets? Sure beats cookie dough. I bet those PTA ladies would be singing a different tune if any of their kids had sold the winning ticket. That 10 percent cut would’ve paid for a lot of manicures and Starbucks’ lattes.

It’s not as if Contessa doesn’t have a few of her own life lessons to share with the kids. Sure, they may know which spoon to use with their ice cream but do they know how to select a decent bottle of Cabernet? Contessa could be the Manners Luncheon wine steward and give them a real education. No longer would they confuse a winepress with a cookie press or Napa Valley with Silicon Valley. She’d even throw in a vocabulary list with words they’d never find on a TAKS exam: sommelier, vintage, corkscrew, vintner.

Truth be told, there’s an ulterior motive. After the kids show their parents how to sniff, swish, and swallow, those PTA ladies will forget all about Lotto raffle tickets.

Danielle Schaaf is the co-author of Don’t Chew Jesus! and can be contacted at hauteflashcontessa@yahoo.com.