Thursday, July 30, 2009

Thankless Jobs

Of all of the terrible parenting jobs there are, I’m convinced little league baseball coach is one of the worst. How do I know? Well, this year I got roped into that thankless job. To make matters even worse, I volunteered for the position. Actually, I got the one job even lower than Coach, I got to be dugout mom for Boy’s baseball team.

It started innocently enough when the Coach sent an email asking for a volunteer to keep the score book during the game. I’m good with numbers. I like math. I get to be a part of Boy's team without actually having to do work. How hard can it be to be scorekeeper?

What wasn’t explained in the email was that the scorekeeper would sit in the dugout. And, since Coach had to be on the field to pitch, or call outs, or whatever, the score keeper would be responsible for keeping order in the dugout. That's right, the scorekeeper would have to attempt to control 10-12 little boys. I don't believe it was an accident that little detail was not in the original email.

So my job consisted of making sure the boys got their helmets on. Letting them know when they were batting. Generally preventing them from killing each other or hurting themselves. In between these lovely activities, I had to keep score.

Since I was in charge of everything related to the dugout, it was assumed that I always knew where the bathroom was. It didn’t matter if I had never been to the field we were playing on, all the boys asked me where the bathroom was at some point in the game. Normally, even though I never had a clue where the bathroom was, it wasn’t a problem.

One game, little Tommy waddled up to me doing the dance. With his legs crossed, and a slight shiver, Tommy says, “Coach, where’s the bathroom?” As usual, I have no clue, so I point into the distance at some sheds off at the horizon. “I think it’s over there.”

Without another word, Tommy runs off and returns shortly thereafter.

Another little factoid about little league is once one child has to go, they all have to go. I try to push the mass exodus off as long as I can, until finally, near the end of the game, all the boys have to go. As they start to rush off en mass, one of the boys turns, “Where is the bathroom?”

As I started to point into the distance, I realized there was one person who knew where the bathroom was. “Tommy!” I shout, “Where’s the bathroom?”

Tommy looks at me with glee, “I don’t know. I just went to my car and peed in a cup.”

Before I could speak, a small cheer went up from the gathered boys, and I heard, “Cool, can I go pee in your car?”

2 comments:

  1. I think it is pretty much an established fact that Lee is obsessed with going to the bathroom. I'm sure Freud knows what this means, I do not, but I still find it amusing.

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  2. I don't think Freud knows, either, being dead and all.

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