Tuesday, June 19, 2012

It's a Conspiracy

I am about to confess to a particularly heinous crime against parenthood; are you ready for it? Ok, here goes...

...I am not exactly the world's most supportive sports parent.

Some of you may be shocked by that admission, shaking your heads and quietly defending my parenting practices in your heads (Hi,Mom!) while others may merely be rolling their eyes while thinking to themselves; "You don't say" (hi, Dad!), but, there it is.

Last night's baseball game provides a pretty good example of my short-comings in this regard:

The drive to the game took an hour and twenty minutes, through the Canyon of Doom, with the constant threat of a car-sick kid hovering over my head. Once we arrived at the baseball field, we were greeted by one of my favorite Baseball Mom-slash-Ladies Who Porch, who; informed me that the 10 Run Rule would be in force due to the relative awesomeness of the team we were about to play. Further, the team had smoked the other team from Petticoat Junction; dropping them in the third inning when the 20 Run Rule kicked into effect, and; the other Petticoat Junction team is supposedly "stacked" and has a better record than our team (by one whole win, whoop-whoop).

So, to put it bluntly; we would probably wrap up the evening in record time, which, would be sort of awesome considering the whole "driving an hour and twenty minutes back to Petticoat Junction, through the Canyon of Doom, with the threat of car sickness hovering over my head, plus the added worry of not being able to see the wildlife on the road due to the challenge of driving straight into the setting sun" thing.

And, that's clearly where the first crack in my "supportive parenting" appeared, because; I was happy.

I know. Terrible.

The second, and most obvious, crack appeared not long after.

We were nineteen runs behind entering the fourth inning, with the promise of the 20 Run Rule kicking in, provided we didn't manage to score any runs during our at-bat. This meant that there was still plenty of good daylight left in which to grab ice cream before the drive home, and; that there would be less possibility of one of us accidentally totalling our car on a deer while making that drive.

Spirits were high amongst the mothers who had made the trip (I am not alone in my weakness) until I jokingly remarked that it would sure be funny if the boys were to rally, thus ruining our chance at the 20 Run Rule.

Yes. I did; I jinxed us.

The Man-Cub started it off with a solid hit to center field and the Game Was ON. Seven runs later, it became quite clear that we would not be partaking of the 20 Run Rule, and, here is where the above-mentioned crack turns into a yawning CANYON OF SHAME, because; we totally started to root for the other team.

Not even kidding.

And, I'm not proud of my short-comings in this regard, but, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one, so; My name is Chelle and I am a terrible sports-parent. If there is a twelve-step program out there, please feel free to tell me. I might take advantage of it. Or, I might not, since, the other mothers and I discussed the situation and arrived at the conclusion that the boys had planned, all along, to play poorly before making a dramatic come-back, just to screw with us.

The fact that they still lost by ten runs is totally irrelevant.

So, no ice cream for them.

They're just lucky that no one hit a deer on the way home.

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