Bend It Like Beckham Or Punch Him Like Sugar Ray?

Young Erik Noisewater is 2 and a half years old now, and we got young him in a soccer program. As much as I dislike the sport, it really is the best introduction to team sports for little kiddos. Believe it or not there are some toddlers in his group who you can already tell are going to be great athletes. Erik is just okay as far as the coordination and athleticism goes, but he makes up for it by being a great listener and rule follower. Each class has 10 toddlers, 2 coaches, and it is required that there is one parent per kid out there running around making sure everything goes a little more smoothly. But it's still pretty much like herding cats every Sunday.

I had to take him to a make up class on Thursday after work. All day at work I was hating everyone and pretty much thinking about how everyone seems to be deep down an asshole at heart, and believe it or not I couldn't wait until the soccer practice that afternoon to see play soccer with my great little dude - my little hope for humanity homie. But when I got there the weeknight coach was neither of the nice fellas I was used to from the Sunday class. He was a little weasely-looking, hunched over, eyes half opened and not appearing to be focused on anything in particular creeper who reminded me of a combination of Doctor Riviera from The Simpsons and Igor from the Frankenstein movies. I feel like I could not have been the only parent in the room to have that gut feeling like this maybe is not the best dude to be around kids. Let's put it this way: They give all the kids stamps on the hands at the end of the classes, and when I overheard a coach saying that they cannot put stamps on the kids' bellies anymore because a parent complained, I knew right away it had to have been after this dude lifted one too many kids' jerseys. I tried to describe his vibe to Mrs. Noisewater, and he is a guy who it is hard to say if he would be into men, women, or god forbid kids. It almost seems like he would check off the none of the above box because he is into getting romantic with animals or trees or something far more divergent.

Little of this

And a little of this. And that's our coach. 

So Tree-Humper, as odd as he may be, was running a pretty good class, but my supposed great listener and rule abiding son is completely doing his own thing. When it is time for little kicks, he is toe bashing the ball across the gym. When they are all supposed to wait in line, he is booking it to the other side of the room and trying to hop over the barricade. More often than not he seemed to be doing the exact opposite of what Doctor Igor was asking of him. I pulled him aside a few times to say, "We have to listen to the coach, Erik." There was a look in my boy's eye like, "That's not happening, bro." Who was this kid? I was used to him being one of the best in the class and feeling kind of bad for those parents who chased around their kid who seemed to have zero interest in what the activities were and seemed in their own world. And now my guy was that kid. He was the worst in the group. And I was so looking forward to this class after a crap day at work. Now I was stressed and needed a beer. Because of a 2-year-old soccer practice? Yes. And if I'm being honest with you this thought came in my head: I'm so disappointed in this kid. What? How shitty to say that about a 2-year-old? They are going to do terrible shit when they're in their terrible 2's, right? I know this. But I'm just being honest about what was in my stupid head at the time because you're my people and you're the folks I can be real with.

Out of his mind that day. But a winning smile. 

Then just as the class is wrapping up, when I can already taste the cold Apex Predator I'm going to need after this day of work and this kid wearing me out, the kids are all huddled up, putting their hands in for a big go team, and someone else's kid punches Tree-Humper square in the nose for no reason at all. Wham! A perfectly placed blow, and the coach is actually hurt, his eyes are watering, and he completely stops teaching and just tries to recover. One mom asks if he needs an ice pack. He declines. Maybe he is just being dramatic, but who knows. What we do know is that . . . in a last second buzzer beater turn of events . . . Erik was not the worst kid in the class that afternoon. I really shouldn't have taken pleasure from a toddler socking a creepy coach dead in the nose, but I was flicking thrilled. It was beautiful.

That's all I got, friends. What you got on tap this weekend? If you're like me you are going to clock this weekend in the beak with a right hook like Erik and his daddy's new favorite teammate. 

Hey, everyone.  I woke up from a nap today and decided I needed to write this.  Hope you enjoy it.  Oh, and to answer the questions from the last post:

1. Yup.  Golf carts are everywhere.  Locals own them, but mostly it is the tourists driving minimal distances.  I would say there were more golf carts than actual cars out there.

2. The pigs were causing too many problems and were all killed off years ago.

3. The buffalo are still there, but you have to get way inland to see them.  They were brought there to film a movie a long time ago, but the movie's budget ran out, so they just left them there, where they have grown in numbers ever since.

4. Yeah, we said that a few times.  We also learned that Marilyn Monroe lived on Catalina for a while before World War Two, Natalie Wood drowned near there, and at one time most of the island was owned by William Wrigley Jr., also the owner of the gum company and the Chicago Cubs.  As a result, the Cubs used to play their spring training games there.

Okay, anyway.  Here's that story that I just wrote that I was telling you about.  Hope you like it:

My mood was that of a sour funk as I walked through the snow past the grades school I went to as a kid, when I slipped on something and had to catch myself with my bare hand, which landed directly into an inch or two of cold snow and concrete.  But there was something in my hand too, it was plastic, horseshoe shaped, and as I looked around, there must have been ten or twelve of them.  It took a second or two for it to dawn on me that they were plastic mouthguards for football and then another few seconds before I put it together that they were there because that class of 5th and 6th graders on the football team had thrown them on the roof at the end of their season, just as I had 20-something years ago.  Dropping that mouthguard into the hot water and popping that hot plastic into your mouth, you felt like a knight preparing his sword for battle, and whipping it up on the roof at the end of a hard fought seasons was an important ceremonial right of passage.  

Our coach back then was a little off his rocker.  He had a crazed look in his eye when he would yell at you where you would not be the least bit surprised if he suddenly wrapped his hands around a scrawny 11-year-old neck.  His rants were often tangental, and looking back, I'm not even sure if he remembered what it was he was mad about by the end of one his motivational browbeatings.  He would get so flustered and outraged at our lack of discipline and athletic ability, that he would get speechless; just angry stairs, looking around at each and every one of us for what seemed like thirty minutes at a stretch, but was probably closer to one or two.  

My hand and the rest of me wasn't even cold anymore, and after all that reminiscing about mouth guards, my coach, and wearing football pads for the first time with my girdle pad slipping off my ass as I tried to keep up during wind sprints, that just like that ranting and pausing coach so long ago, I wasn't even sure what I was mad about to begin with.