My husband and I are the lucky parents of two children involved in Pop Warner football. If you’ve never had the “pleasure” of this experience, let me briefly enlighten you: 1) expect to pay at least twice the amount of money they first indicate you will have to pay. We are at about $500 per kid now with uniforms, practice uniforms, equipment, etc. This does not include all the snacks and drinks I will “voluntarily” provide to the team when it’s my turn; 2) the paperwork that must be completed is quite extensive, so plan on taking some vacation days from work to get it done; 3) you will be forced to pay $100 for these retaurant discount cards, which you can re-sell if you can find anyone stupid enough to buy one (which you likely will not). This is the league “fundraiser” which is quite diabolical on Pop Warner’s part, because they get the money up front (your kid can’t play until you “donate”) and they don’t have to worry about the crappy product they need to schlep; 4) you are forced to “donate” at least four hours of your time doing something for the team or the league (again, your kids can’t play if you don’t sign the contract); 5) you, your players’ siblings, and the grandparents have to pay to enter your kids’ games because apparently the hundreds of dollars we already paid do not cover the cost of referees (who make a bucket load of dough based on the admissions I’ve seen coming into these games); 6) expect to sit for at least 3 hours for every game, one hour pre-game and 2 hours for the game…add some extra time for coaches who love to hear themselves talk after the game (read: all of them); 7) keep in mind that this can be extra, super fun if your kid is one who is not related to a coach and therefore ends up riding the bench the whole game (except for special teams of course!). Add to this the chance for crappy weather, fire ants and mosquitos, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a treat!
Now that you have an overview of the system, and therefore a basis for my bitterness, I can move on to the subject at hand. Because I have two kids at different ages (one cheerleader and one football player), we of course have different game schedules. We have 3 schedules in fact. Yes, I know, the math is not working for you. Let me explain…my daughter as a cheerleader has to cheer for two teams. There were so many kids in this one league they split them in two. So one week she cheers for one team and the other week she cheers for the other. This means we have the added treat of negotiating an additional game schedule onto our calendars. Her games are around 1pm and my son’s games are around 7pm. This essentially means that our Saturdays are shot. We have to get to the field at 12:30, watch cheering (the same 5 cheers over and over and over and over….) until 3:00. We pack up our camping gear (chairs, umbrellas, blankets, cooler) and are outta there by 3:15. Then we have to leave our house at 5:15 for an away game to get to our son’s field by 5:45 for a 7:00 game. Yes, this coach likes to be extra prepared and he does love his pre-game motivational speeches. It’s a good thing my kids are so damn cute.
So, being the dutiful mother I am, and recovering sports-neglectful-mom that I have been in the past, I printed out the various game schedules and magnetized them to our refrigerator so we wouldn’t miss a single moment of Pop Warner bliss. To avoid confusion, I even wrote my kids’ names at the top of the corresponding schedules. My son was standing at the fridge yesterday and he says in this 13 year old, condescending, humored tone, “Mom, you’re such a spaz. You put the wrong schedule up here. Duh.” I ignored the tone (rather than tackle him and give him a good rug burn on his forehead which is probably what he deserved, disrespectful little turd that he is), and responded, “Oh no I didn’t.”
“Oh yes you did Mom, wanna bet?” We’ve had many a betting incident in our house, and so I thought my son had learned his lesson. Basically we’ve tried to drive home the points that 1) gambling is unhealthy, 2) gambling causes you to lose all your dog washing money, and 3) gambling causes fights between siblings that piss The Parents off, so is generally not worth it, even if you win. He forgot those points I guess.
“Sure,” I responded, “how much do you want to bet?” I was laying my weblike trap for his hapless soul, and he was too young and blinded by his rightness to see it being woven around him.
“A hundred bucks!” he responded, with glee in his devilish eyes. He was probably already spending the money he was dreaming of fleecing from his retarded mother on Skittles and games for his Nintendo DS.
After ascertaining that he didn’t have $100, we settled on a bet for $20. I gave him a few chances to back out of the bet so that I would be able to go to sleep without guilt and of course to make the winning that much more glorious.
He grabbed the schedules off the fridge and yelled, “AH HA!!! See!! J-P-W?? I DON’T PLAY FOR JUPITER PEE WEE!!!!!! DUH!!!!!! YOU’VE GOT THE WRONG TOWN AND THE WRONG LEAGUE, LOSER!!! NOW PAY UP!!!” I responded by smiling. All cool like, without a trace of fear. This worried him. His smile got less bright and his manner less jubilant. (I can be really scary when I do that look.) ”What?” he said, with trepidation. ”Why are you smiling like that?”
“Take a look at the top of that page, son, and tell me what you see.” He looked at the sheet and then across his face I saw confusion, followed shortly by sheepishness. I continued, “Do you see something written at the top of that page in BOLD, BLACK handwriting? Your sister’s name perhaps? The girl that cheers for JUNIOR-PEE-WEE??” I paused for effect. ”Now take a look at the last sheet. The one that has your name at the top of it. Isn’t that your correct schedule?”
“Yeah,” he responded, already letting the bitterness sink in to his gut, “but that was confusing you know. I can’t really be to blame for not getting that.” What he didn’t get was that he was holding his sister’s schedules in his hand. His schedules were under it.
“Yeah, whatever, hand over my twenty bucks LOSER. And next time, pay attention when I try to warn you and give you chances to back out of a bet with me.”
My son handed over his hard earned cash and tried to pout for a few minutes, but even he couldn’t deny the sheer awesomeness of my power. He had to laugh at himself for being so quick to label me stupid and clueless. Our history has shown that I will gladly admit when I’m stupid and clueless, it’s generally a situation of which I am well aware and am happy to report to whomever will listen. When I act cocky, I have good reason.
So all’s well that ends well. I got money to buy my favorite popcorn and some goobers for movie night, and my son got a very valuable lesson. Don’t gamble with money you want to use for video games, and don’t mess with Mom, especially when she’s being nice and smiling too much. Parents: eight thousand nine hundred and twenty one, Kids: ZIP!
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