I may have mentioned this before but in order to secure a spot for Parker in the CYL (Caledonia Youth Basketball League) I was forced to coach. Our first game was Saturday and while I had a problem with the refs, I had to cut them some slack because they had no idea what they were doing. The refs are players on the Caledonia team and seem to have no awareness of when to call what. Sadly I had even more of a problem with the mother who insisted on a snack rotation (I’ll get to that soon) I get it, there are at least seven traveling violations, twelve double dribbles, and eighteen fouls that could be called every possession. However, I am pretty sure they gave the other team points we scored and they missed a crucial traveling call on a made basket (I get not calling traveling or anything else when it doesn’t result in a positive play) which there were only 9 of the entire game between both teams.

The day before the game I received an email from a parent about starting a snack rotation. I ignored it. She also claimed she played high school basketball and if I needed help to let her know. Granted her kid is one of two players who can actually handle the ball, but I’m not bringing anyone on as an assistant coach. If you want to take over as head coach I will gladly step away, but I’m not taking on an assistant. What do you know, she started the snack rotation without my approval and brought doughnuts for the kids. The doughnuts did make sense in theory since our game was at 8 am, but doughnuts after the kids played basketball? Most of the kids on the team are already terrible, doughnuts are not going to help them get better. When I was a kid we didn’t get snacks after every game and my parents rarely showed up to any of my games, frankly I’m surprised they even signed me up for anything. To be honest, I had to beg and plead to get my mom to sign me up for 4th grade rec league b-ball and when she did she made me wear Sunday socks instead of the white striped tube socks everyone else wore. I was ridiculed by all the kids in the league, my moms reasoning was that Sunday (dress) socks aren’t hard to keep white because they aren’t white, but tube socks are because they are white at one point but eventually become the hue of jizz when my mom is the one laundering them. It was tough being made fun of for my socks but I should thank my mom for making me wear them, that along with my dad calling me pizza face and bean pole are the primary reasons for it being almost impossible to hurt my feelings. You should hear the shit my kids say to me, if they are saying stuff like that to me I don’t want to know what they say to kids at school, no idea where they get that from.

I do remember going out for ice cream after games as a reward. The problem is one year I was on such a terrible team we went out for ice cream after a tie because our coach knew it was probably our only opportunity of the season not to lose, I actually threw out a runner at home to preserve the tie, probably the greatest achievement other than winning the 6th grade rec league shootout, in my entire athletic career (although I am in a pickle ball ladder league currently so it is possible that I didn’t peak in 6th grade) However, why do kids need snacks after a sporting event? Not only do the kids not need them, the parents don’t need the hassle. She created an online snack schedule and sent out an email that there are two spots still available like it is something that is sought after. We have five games left and that means only three parents have volunteered. The end of the games are like church in my mind, I want to get out of there as fast as I can, I don’t make eye contact with anyone after church out of fear they will try to engage me, and I have the same policy when my coaching duties are completed. I am half tempted to sign up for snack detail and bring celery sticks and raisins for the snack with yoo hoo to wash it down, I want to throw up just thinking about that trifecta of awfulness.

Having Parker play basketball has required that he buy an additional pair of shoes, at least in his mind, so he can preserve the Giannis shoes I bought him a couple months ago for purposes of basketball. Knowing I had to wear Sunday socks to hoop in as a child, my shoes obviously weren’t much better. Parker has no idea how good he has it nor does his brother. Granted, most of it is under my control, ok some of it, the privileged life they live does have a lot to do with Shirley, but I also want them to experience things I didn’t have growing up, like joy. That being said, I did have an idea, that if it could be fashioned into an actual thing, would be a multi million dollar idea and possibly a way to save upcoming generations. Create a camp that recreates the parent’s childhood and send your kids there. It would be difficult to completely replicate my childhood, not sure you can create a camp where a kid has to wear Sunday socks to play sports while all the other kids where tube socks, but I’m sure there is room to really have an impact on kids and show them how awful life was when their parents were kids, if the creators of the camp are creative enough. Forcing the teenage boys who attend the camp to find actual porn instead of just surfing for it online would put them through some true adversity and likely be a character builder.

We ended up heading to the Dick’s sporting goods on our side of town to look for shoes. Aiden tagged along and decided he wanted to get in on the purchasing, requesting that I buy him a bright blue pair of crocs. While attending a camp that creates a parents childhood for their children is next level in putting a kid through the wringer, wearing crocs can also mold a child or turn them into a serial killer, depending on which fork in the road they decide to take. Did I do Aiden a disservice buying the crocs for him? They are extremely comfortable as well as practical, but I also need to protect him to a degree. On the other hand, I did my fatherly duty when it came to Parker, he wanted to settle for some Nike high tops that were not nearly as cool as ones he could get at the Rivertown Dick’s, when I suggested we wait until tomorrow and go there the sales associate even agreed with me. While we were standing in line to purchase the Crocs I continued to crop dust Dick’s, Aiden yelled out “Dad you just farted!” While I had some reservations about purchasing the Crocs there was no turning back after he outed me for breaking wind.

One of the reasons I was out and about besides looking for frivolous shoes and crocs for my kids was that my dad needed a refill on depends. I don’t think he would care that I mention that, not much seems to bother him, but he is bound to a wheelchair and doesn’t always have an easy time making it to the bathroom. Costco has the best deal on depends, granted you have to buy a years supply at a time, but it’s the go to place for adult diapers. I had just hit Costco the previous day so I only needed depends but also purchased Vanilla and something else but don’t remember what, it wasn’t a kayak though. As I was walking through Costco with enough depends to allow someone to shit their pants for the entirety of March and April, I realized there are certain items you should probably buy online, depends being one of them. Basically I was announcing to the store that I shit or piss my pants, possibly both. Similarly, when you buy condoms from the store you are announcing to everyone you come across that you don’t trust your partner (nobody uses them for birth control do they?) Tampons, while being purchased by a female don’t say much other than “hey I still get my period” but when a man purchases them it says “I can’t tell my girlfriend no” (if it’s a married man it’s a whole different story, married men have lost any reason to live and would buy whatever their wife tells them to as long as it gets them off their back). What was truly remarkable to me is how happy the people look on the depends package. These people are grinning from ear to ear, how happy can someone be when they routinely shit and piss themselves? On top of it they are depicted wearing a T-shirt and a pair of depends, how humiliating. “Hey Carl, I know it’s been a while since I’ve gotten you any work but I just landed a big one for you, you’re going to be the new face of Depends!”

I had left the kids in the car to spare them the humiliation of being the kids whose dad shits and pisses himself. When I got back to the car I put some notes in my phone. Parker asked me what I was doing and I told him it was notes for blog topics. He did not realize I had a blog and wanted to know how to access it. Obviously, I did not tell him but did explain that the two of them are frequent topics along with Shirley and max. Do I pull the plug on the blog on the off chance they find it on the inter web? probably not, most of the stuff is stuff I would say to their face and there are some valuable life lessons buried in this thing. I just hope the kids don’t try reading it to Shirley some day.