Last week Shirley and I took off for Florida. The trip began in Longboat Key where we stayed at the Zota Beach Resort. I use to feel bad leaving our kids with the in-laws when they were younger, but now that all they need is electricity and someone to make sure they get on the bus I don’t feel so bad. The first day there we landed and went to Budget to pick up our rental car. Shirley had rented a Toyota Camry (or like car) and we ended up with a Chevy Malibu which is nothing like a Toyota Camry, sure they both have four wheels and an engine, but that is where the similarity ends. Upon arriving at the beach resort I was unable to turn into the parking area due to orange cones being in my way. Turns out at the Zota Beach Resort you have to valet. There are two primary reasons I hate to valet. The first is paying someone to do something I am perfectly capable of doing, retrieving my vehicle. Secondly, I want instant access to my car because I like going places, even when I am in unfamiliar territory on vacation. In addition, what is the protocol? There is no way I am tipping these mother fuckers when they get my car and when I give it back to them. So, whenever I don’t tip them, which I decided was when they handed my car over to me, it was extremely awkward. I will say this, the fact that I had to pay every time I wanted to use my car really kept my comings and goings to a minimum.

The initial leg of the journey, which was spent in Longboat key, was fairly uneventful. I had planned on going to play pickle ball somewhere but never actually got around to doing that. I know this is kind of weird, but I really enjoy going grocery shopping in other states and discovering the differences each state has in its food shopping experience. When I am in Florida I always go to Publix, partially because I can call it Pubelix, but also because I think it is the best grocery shopping experience Florida has to offer. The only troublesome thing about Florida grocery shopping is that the liquor is in a whole separate store, they make alcoholics put in that extra effort to keep their habit moving forward. In addition, I think they tax everything in Florida, at least it felt like it. I went to Pubelix each day because going to grocery stores in other states makes me feel alive. Friday of the trip was my 50th birthday, I was glad to be spending it on foreign soil where I would get little actual in person attention. (it took Shirley until mid morning to even say Happy Birthday, and that’s why I love her so much, she doesn’t really notice or pay attention to me). We went out to eat and I will say this, being 50, I still felt young and vibrant compared to most of the patrons eating out that evening.

Saturday morning was check out and we were on our way to Orlando for some health law conference Cara was attending that was taking place at the Ritz Carlton. Her aunt and uncle were on the way to Orlando. I like her aunt and uncle, but I knew it would be incredibly depressing to stop and see them. They are like most of the old people that live in Florida, they don’t really do anything. I managed to kill roughly an hour after dropping Shirley off by getting Starbucks and breakfast. When I got back we all just kind of sat there and stared at one another. Eventually, and because she has been married to me for fifteen years, Shirley realized I was getting antsy and needed to get out of there so we said our good byes and continued on our way to Orlando. Shirley had warned me that she wanted to stop at a particular outlet mall that was close to her Aunt and Uncle’s so instead of taking a route to avoid the mall, I, being the dutiful husband that I am, drove her to the mall. It was your typical outlet mall for the most part but it did have a Billabong outlet and I picked up a new pair of board shorts and a new pair of regular shorts that are now my favorite shorts, had I known I was going to buy them prior to the trip I wouldn’t have packed any other shorts. They also had a Polo outlet, how is that brand even still a thing, I haven’t seen anyone wearing polo clothing in decades, is it just a front for the Chinese to infiltrate our country by setting up shop in every outlet mall across the entire United States?

After what seemed to be an excruciating amount of time we finally left the outlet mall and headed on our last leg of the journey to Orlando. I4 seemed to be the logical route to get into Orlando until I realized it was basically like trying to drive through a parking lot after a sold out concert but for roughly 25 miles. Yep, it took close to an hour to go 12 miles. Apparently there are so many people that want to enjoy nice weather that they are willing to endure this type of gridlock on a fairly regular basis. While Michigan sucks in the winter it does have the advantage of not attracting unwanted guests for most of the year. We rolled up to the Ritz in the Chevy Malibu, it fit right in with the Lambo, Bentley, and a number of other exotic cars parked in the valet area. I wanted to let the valet know it was supposed to be a Toyota Camry, but I don’t think it would have mattered to him, besides, rolling up in a Malibu sets the tipping expectations quite low.

Once again I was flummoxed by having to valet. Shirley thought valet parking was not mandatory but I knew better. We ended up asking and found out it was mandatory and that if we wanted to park on our own, we could go to the JW self park lot where we would be charged $35 a day. Valet was $60 plus the tips you had to throw out, so a win from a financial standpoint, but a real pain in the ass to have to run over to the JW to get my car. We had dinner plans that evening with a couple that Shirley had attended law school with, I don’t think the wife works anymore, and the husband took over the family business running a tree farm and doesn’t have to be a lawyer, in fact, I’m not sure he ever had to be a lawyer, which is complete bullshit to me. This tree farm isn’t a Christmas tree farm, it seems to be the type that is actually profitable and in Florida if you are putting up a new house you have to have two certain types of trees in your yard to get the occupancy permit, and he just so happens to sell both of those types of trees.

Our dinner plans were at a Michelin restaurant, not sure what quality dining has to do with tires, but I went with it. I think the place was called knife and spoon and it was all way too much pomp and circumstance for me. The number of people tasked with waiting on us could have staffed an entire jumbo jet, seemed completely unnecessary to me. Now, I feel like steaks are a waste of time at a restaurant because I do a great steak, but they had Wagyu filet on the menu. I went ahead and ordered it and the other women with us ordered the regular filet (there was a $30 price difference). Turns out the Wagyu is better, not sure why, maybe they let it have as much a sex it wants, but it’s just better. Shirley went with the five course tasting menu and I just kept drinking as a coping mechanism to tolerate the pretentious nature of the entire experience. Had I not had a lot to drink by the time the bill arrived I probably would have had a mini stroke, but I handled it well and only yelled “holy fucking shit!” at the top of my lungs when I saw the final price tag for our meal. The good news is that they had a bar in the basement that had shuffleboard, and it was free, I love shuffleboard, not the kind old people play the kind where you slide pucks across a board that has salt/sand on it and you try to get it as close to the end without having it fall off. Shirley was surprisingly good at it, but I think it was because of the booze.

On Sunday I decided we should go off site for breakfast and found a place called Flapjack Joes near our hotel. When we arrived in the parking lot there was quite a bit of garbage the appeared to have been there for a while and it looked like there were a bunch of Trumpers dining in the restaurant. I was shocked that a place called flapjack Joes could appear to be so mediocre even though one of the reviews indicated that a hair had been found in their scramble and they only knocked $4 off his bill, so I should have known better. I am guessing if he could have proven it was a pube he may have been able to secure a free meal. Shirley insisted on going back to the Ritz for breakfast and I obliged. Upon sitting down and looking at the menu, risking a hair, even a pube in my scramble would have been a better option. The cheapest thing on the menu was $28. In addition, they did not list the price of the breakfast buffet, and Shirley and I were too embarrassed to ask what it would cost, we just went for it. The buffet was underwhelming, and unfortunately, even though I left and let Shirley take care of it, I asked her how much it was a day later. (I did not make the same mistake with the Harry Potter wands she bought her and the kids at universal studios five plus years ago, I still have no idea what those things set us back) When you pay what we paid for the buffet there better be some amazing shit to eat and a hand job at the end of the experience. I’m sure I could have negotiated a handy in the parking lot of flapjack joes.

After the buffet I headed out to play some pickle ball. The park I picked out was about a half hour from the hotel and it took me traversing 9 different highways to get there. That’s the thing about Orlando, they have more highways than theme parks and it can be a bit overwhelming. After pickle ball I hit the pool. One of the things about a five star hotel is everyone wants to fake help you, what they really want is you to give them a tip, but they have to pretend like they can be of some kind of service so they can justify that tip. At the pool I went up to get a towel from the towel cart, which was surrounded by employees, and after grabbing a towel an employee asked if I needed help. Was I supposed to have them carry the towel back to my chair for me and then give them five bucks? I managed to doze off and was awoken by some girl asking me if I wanted aloe, I wanted to respond by saying leave me the fuck alone.

Earlier in the day I had received a text from the tree farm guy indicating that I needed to do the cold plunge that was in the men’s locker room of the workout facility. He also indicated that I needed to stay in there for at least 120 seconds, normally it would take a few drinks for me to last that long, but I felt I was up for the task. I had scoped out the work out facility earlier but it didn’t have the right vibe for working out, it was nice, but I wasn’t feeling it. There was no locker room leading off from the floor of the work out area, so I made my way up some stairs and some more stairs and discovered an area that was probably not open to every guest of the hotel. At this point I was in my board shorts, tank top, and flip flops. Around the corner was an area that contained a hot tub, a sauna, steam room, and a magnificent shower. It also contained a cold tub. As I was taking my tank top and flip flops off a guy in a robe appeared and asked if I was going to use the shower, I told him I was hitting the cold tub and he went into the shower. I didn’t get the vibe that he wanted me to join him, but it was not out of the realm of possibility. The instant I began to acclimate to the cold tub out of no where appeared an employee who asked me my last name. I thought to myself, that can’t be good. He was Latin and could have easily been gay or maybe not, I think it all depended on what type of mood he was in. Its pretty easy to shrug off kind of gay people, so I just kept talking, asking him about how it all worked, how much it would cost for a day pass (I almost shit in the cold tub when I found out), and other things that allowed me to stall him as my Apple Watch was counting down the seconds. Once it hit 120 I was out of that cold tub as if it was filled with flesh eating piranha. Him escorting me out of there was a bit awkward, especially when I took a couple wrong turns, but totally worth it knowing I had saved myself $100.

It’s always amazed me how differently my family handles birthdays as opposed to Shirley’s family. When I was growing up we would lump about 12 or 13 people’s birthdays together, spanning the course of 3 to 4 months, get a cake from this bakery that made a Bill Knapp’s cake seem like a delicacy, and then do it all over again in another 3 to 4 months. I am not sure how they determined the cut off for when one’s birthday was lumped in with other birthdays, but it accomplished the ultimate goal of seeing family members as little as possible. Now, what I just described was the Jansma side of my family, the Rozema side typically did not acknowledge birthdays, and if it did it was celebrated with a bowl of Shop Rite (For those unfamiliar with Shop Rite, take Family Fare and immerse it in poverty and you have Shop Rite or just go visit the Family Fare on Fulton and Fuller) vanilla ice cream and possibly a card. Shirley’s family on the other hand, will actually have a dedicated party for only one person. On top of that, and this always gets me, there is a family text string where they wish happy birthday to people, and frequently those people are not even on the text string. A lot of this I like to attribute to my mother in law, her birthday is in June, not just one day, she’s decided that instead of the typical day a person gets to commemorate their coming into existence, she gets an entire month. (she just asked me what we are going to do to celebrate my 50th birthday later this month, my response was “nothing”)

Needless to say, my kids have benefited greatly from the fact that we don’t do birthday’s the Jansma way. Parker had his 11th birthday party this past weekend, his 11th birthday was on Tuesday and was sandwiched by the family party last weekend (he did have to share the spotlight with his cousin Noah) and his friends party which was an overnight from Saturday to Sunday. Growing up, I remember none of my friends wanting to come over to my house because they were scared of my mom, heck I was scared of my mom until my late 30’s, but our house seems to be the hub for a lot of activity. The neighbor kids often come over to our house after school due to the fact that they can do whatever they want, their mom is a stay at home mom (what do stay at home moms do all day when their kids have reached school age?) and is typically home regulating their behavior. A few weeks back Aiden had a friend over and I was yelling at him for something that was probably well warranted. He was in shock that I was yelling at him when he had a friend over. My parents never held back on the rare occasion I had a friend over. His options were, have a friend over and get yelled at or not have a friend over and get yelled at. Obviously, there is a third option, don’t do dumb shit that gets you yelled at, but that third option is less likely to occur than CBS not showing Taylor Swift every time Travis Kelce did something even semi noteworthy during the Super Bowl. 

I think it has been indicated that Shirley and I see each other for roughly 11 minutes during the week, and none of those 11 minutes are spent coming up with a plan for anything, so I had no idea what was going on for Parker’s party. What I did know is that I had pickle ball on Saturday from 2-4 and tennis from 4-6. Probably should have alerted Shirley to that fact, but why would I change my normal course of behavior on the weekends? the kids coming over were in fifth grade, pretty sure they didn’t need my help with anything. At 1:30 I left under the guise that I was running errands for the party. (I did move my tennis match to Sunday morning because that’s the kind of sacrifice I’m willing to make for my favorite kid, had it been Aiden’s birthday I probably wouldn’t have made it back home until 8 or 9pm) When I showed up home with a bunch of craft beer (Meijer had a buy one get one half off sale) and ice cream Shirley was a bit incensed. In my defense, I suggested pizza but Shirley wanted to do a taco bar. (I did make chocolate chip cookies and brownies when I got home, as well as get a campfire going) After the kids finished dinner and Parker opened his presents, they went outside to play capture the flag. Unfortunately, they only had 7 kids so I was roped into playing, instead of sitting inside drinking my newly purchased craft beer. When I was a little kid the adults would play capture the flag out at Green Lake on our 55 acre property (my grandfathers purchased it in the 30’s for $3,800). I was always left out of the contest because I was too young. That version of capture the flag involved two handkerchiefs and nothing else. This version of capture the flag involved wrist bands that either had a red or a blue light on it to signify which team you were on, as well as a blue and red lit up jail and blue and red cube for the flag. 

Shirley eventually made her way out to sit by the fire and the kids were surprised how much effort I was putting into capture the flag, Shirley told them all, Mr. Jansma wants to win at everything. To be honest, I am still kicking myself for not coming away with the flag when all the players were distracted and engaged with one another, and Max and I were able to make our way around the perimeter through the woods and had ample uninterrupted time to get the flag and make it back into our territory, only I couldn’t find their flag prior to the other team getting ours. I was sprinting, army crawling, and almost took a header on multiple occasions, but it was worth it to actually get the flag in one of the scrimmages and heroically make it back into my territory yelling “we won! we won!” as if I had just secured a gold medal at the 24 Paris games. At one point we were taking a break and I was rehydrating with a craft beer by the fire. Shirley mentioned the fact that I was about to turn 50 and one of the kids said their uncle just turned 50. Shirley asked if his uncle would be playing capture the flag if he could, his response “No, he’s fat”. 

Back to my competitiveness, Shirley picked up a new game called splendor duel that involves a head to head battle that is similar to the game splendor but can only be played with two players. Thursday night I had lost three times in a row, I was so incensed I almost didn’t want to have sex, almost. But I wasn’t going to give Shirley extra incentive to win. I was vindicated on Saturday with back to back wins, the first in landslide fashion. What amazes me is the joy of winning never comes close to matching the agony of defeat. The next morning I headed out to play tennis and in my first set received a call from Shirley. She was wondering where I was even though she knows I play tennis every Sunday morning. She was quite upset that she had to go to the store to get eggs and make breakfast for the kids that had attended the party (basically the stuff I do 90% of the time). Obviously, I did not mention that fact and sent her this text before heading back home “This my fault I have taken advantage of the freedom that I have and need to reign it in. I’m sorry I should have communicated to you last night what was going on.” When I got home breakfast was made and I had a plate. I could really get use to having breakfast ready when I return home from tennis every Sunday morning. While I realize this is getting long, I will quickly let you know that I canceled pickle ball for that afternoon from 2 to 4pm with the following text to my playing partners “I’m going to need a sub, my wife is going to lose her shit if I tell her I’m playing pickle ball from 2-4. And I don’t need anymore craft beer or ice cream so I can’t claim I”m running errands.” I ended up playing some of the best pickle ball I have ever played. In the third to last game I was at a 4.5 level. 

6 or 7 years ago, on Mother’s Day, I did something I never thought I would do, pretty sure I probably blogged about it, I let my wife and kids talk me into getting a cat. For the first year or two, Jasper, our black cat (that’s relevant for later in the story) hung out on the top bunk of my kids bunk bed, neither one of them slept in the top bunk at the time, nor did they ever. He is an indoor outdoor cat, but most of his time spent in our house lately has been him trying to avoid our two dogs. When we just had Max, Japer seemed fine with it, but now that we also have Murphy, he has no desire to socialize with the two legged members of our household either.

We are use to Jasper being gone every night, even for nights and days at a time, but typically he goes out before we go to bed and when I get up in the morning to go play hoops or tennis, he’s waiting for me to let him in. However, in early December, when we had a stretch of unseasonably warm weather, he was gone for an extended period of time. I didn’t think much of it, because I could give two shits about Jasper, and the mice seemed to be staying away. Mice were the primary reason I relented on the no cat policy, and Jasper has done a hell of a job keeping mice away, as well as killing chipmunks and bunnies. He has a skill, and he loves to show it off, frequently leaving parts of animal carcasses around for us to find and on one occasion, while we were at a campfire, proudly prancing by us with a bunny in his mouth. Shirley, on the other hand, was genuinely concerned that Jasper had met his demise and sent a Facebook post to the neighborhood inquiring as to the whereabouts of Jasper. Plenty of responders to her request, some people even sent photos of Jasper hanging out at their house. At some point he came back for a day, but then was gone again, and this time it seemed for good, because temperatures had dropped significantly, and it was unlike him to stay gone that long when it was that cold. Again, I didn’t care, I just wondered how long it would take for word to get out in the mouse community that Jasper was gone and it was time to go rape and pillage the Jansma house again. Shirley, the soft hearted soul that she is, was a bit more concerned than I was but she hid it well. She continued to probe the neighbors as to Jasper’s whereabouts but this time no one had seen him.

Two Fridays ago, Shirley heard through the grapevine that Jasper had been catnapped. Someone in the neighborhood below us had been feeding Jasper and then wouldn’t let him out of their house. This someone was the sister in law of a woman who was friends with Shirley’s third or ninth cousin, who happens to live just across the road from us. She told Shirley’s cousinish person that her sister in law had Jasper. This led to the sister in law who had clean hands, telling the cat napper that she needed to let Shirley know she had our cat. The sister in law who has clean hands is a jog walker, she actually has completed a marathon jog walking and her jog walking consists of her upper body moving really fast and her lower body moving barely at all. The kids and I always make fun of her when we see her doing this, because it is the right thing to do. Jog walker told the cat napper to piss up a rope and eventually the cat napper came clean and let Shirley know she had our cat but gave no indication she was going to release him from his captors. Not last Friday, but the Friday before, the kids and Shirley were at Fujijama where it was determined they were going to get Jasper back. Once this decision was made, Aiden said “let’s get our black pussy back” (he is my son after all!). Shirley and the kids went down to retrieve the cat only to find the cat cuddling with the cat nappers 15 year old son who was referred to as a retard, which made me realize Shirley was truly upset by the cat napping. I’ve never heard Shirley use that word, so the kid must have some serious abnormalities, probably would have been the humanitarian thing to do to let him keep the cat. However, we were now past the point of turning back, at lest in Shirley’s mind, but to add insult to injury, cat napper quipped in as Shirley was walking out with Jasper, that she was a bad pet owner for letting Jasper out in in-climate weather (too bad it was warm when this bitch cat napped jasper). Jasper did jump out of Shirley’s arms and try to get back into their house, but I’m sure it was only because he felt bad for the retard who was now cat-less.

When I returned home from Pickleball I heard all about the post Fujiyama fireworks. I then heard Shirley call at least 12 maybe 13 of her closest family members and friends to retell the story. Once she got off the phone we discussed it a bit more. I told her I was surprised that she was making such a big deal about it. That is when the water works started and she went on to tell me how she thought Jasper was dead, I wanted to say so did I, but you don’t see me crying about it, but I was hoping to have sex that night so I kept my comments to myself. What I did tell her was that Jasper is a survivor and I knew there was no way he was dead, he’s been living with worms for at least four years now. We purchased deworming pills for him but good luck getting a pill down that asshole’s throat. Also, he’s way too smart for you to put it in his food and have him actually eat it. This, along with the fact that a cat will eat you if they run out of a food source and a dog won’t, is something that separates a cat from a dog. Dogs have no idea that there is a pill hidden in their slice of cheese or ball of raw hamburger.

For the next week Jasper spent 99% of his time in the basement, apparently he really missed his retard, and our mildly retarded dog Murphy wasn’t enough to fill the void. Shirley bought him a cat perch that she wanted to secure into the wall because it seemed too unsteady for Jasper to want to use. The reality is the thing was so unsightly, that that, and the two dogs, were what was likely keeping him away. Eventually, Shirley went down to the basement, retrieved Jasper and placed him on his perch. Jasper immediately went to the basement once Shirley took the dogs for a walk. This week, I decided to let Jasper out, figured by now it was on him if he wanted to be a Jansma or a retard. He chose retard and the cat napper contacted Shirley to let her know Jasper was down there, but this time they weren’t letting him in because they had purchased their own cat. The reality is, black pussy does what black pussy wants to do. 

Growing up I had a phobia about having to shower in a locker room situation, I’d like to think it had nothing to do with the size of my penis, but it probably had everything to do with the size of my penis. The locker room anxiety I face as an adult has nothing to do with the size of my penis, I have no problem acknowledging I have an average size penis. Shirley claims that is a good thing because it keeps her pelvic floor in tact. (While it would be great to have a big old hog and proudly display it in the locker room, I have come to terms with the size of my penis, even though I don’t buy what Shirley is selling). No, my locker room anxiety is now a direct product of my 20 years of spending time in locker rooms. The first incident that sticks out to me, and I may have blogged about this years ago, but it’s still a story worth telling, occurred when I was first married and I was getting ready for work after a morning hoops run at MVP. I was in a stall with a guy who was wearing nothing but socks and wingtips, completely naked but for his footwear and the dress socks he had pulled up to his mid calf. Maybe the guy was allergic to flip flops? Maybe his mom taught him how to get dressed the completely wrong way? I have no logical explanation for why he put his shoes and socks on first and then paraded around the locker room like he was normal. 

Other incidents in the locker room include, but are not limited to, a time where my buddy and I were sitting in the MVP hot tub (both of us were naked, which I will discuss in more detail later). There was a guy hanging on the entry hand railing with his butthole and balls towards us crouching, he proceeded to exit the hot tub and army crawl to the handicap shower. (ask Bill Sutter if you don’t believe me). I once found an unwrapped condom in one of the lockers at MVP. (I didn’t bother to check to see if it had been used). Prior to MVP remodeling their men’s locker room, they had a television surrounded by pleather furniture, old guys would routinely sit completely naked on the furniture. I’m sure their thought process was that they couldn’t get away with the behavior at home, so why not give it a shot at MVP. (In their defense, watching CNBC completely naked is quite liberating). Many of the old guys also prefer to avoid grabbing a towel to give the younger guys a preview as to the actual elasticity of scrotums, I don’t know how they can fit their saggy sacks into their cream colored whitey tighties, but they somehow manage to pull it off. Other behavior that seems to be primarily engaged in by all the old dudes includes blow drying their balls as well as using an entire bottle of lotion every time they try to eradicate dry skin. I saw one guy go so far as to rub up his butt cheeks with lotion. 

Prior to Covid there was a guy named Curtis, Curtis should give you hint to where I am going with this. White guys go by Curt, Kurt, but rarely Curtis. Curtis was one of the worst people to deal with at MVP lunch ball, but a super nice guy off the court. (I don’t think anyone is saying that about me) One time Curtis refused to get off the court after his team had lost and threw himself into the fray as an extra defender, 5 on 5 is tough enough, 5 on 6, that’s impossible. Curtis also had me by my neck one time and was trying to lift me off the ground by my throat, fortunately for Curtis someone stepped in before I could call the police. Regardless of Curtis’s proclivity to be a complete asshole on the court, he, like a lot of the guys I mentioned earlier, didn’t see the need to wrap himself in a towel in the locker room. And, if I was hung like Curtis I probably wouldn’t either. The problem was, Curtis was a close talker, and when you combine his close talking with his monster hog, it was down right frightening, I don’t know how many times I wanted to tell Curtis to put that thing away as he was telling me some story that I could only half pay attention to out of fear of a penile assault. 

But just this week, when I thought I had seen it all, I walked into the locker room to shower and get ready for my afternoon, and found a guy eating his sandwich on one of the benches in the locker room (he left some crumbs behind). It was accompanied by a freshly brewed cup of tea with the tea bag still in it. On top of that he had a shower caddy sitting next to him, with every possible lotion, ointment, soap, shampoo, and manicuring utensil one could dream of. I’d seen this guy many times, my suspicion is he lives at MVP, he is there more than I am and one time I caught him just sitting in the parking lot smoking a heater and listening to something on his wired AirPods (what a fucking loser). I have also watched him clip his toenails in the locker room, letting them fly everywhere like pieces of shrapnel. Initially the guy would always be at the front of the locker room so I could avoid him. The locker room remodel opened up a whole new area of the locker room and I discovered a new place to routinely put my stuff, and use as my staging area. The lockers in the new area are bigger, the lighting is better (not that I want better lighting), and there are not nearly the number of old saggy sacks in the new part of the locker room. The only problem, this ass clown has now claimed it for his own. Today I had Court in Hastings and I stopped at a gas station just outside of the city limits. The sign on the bathroom said no food or drink allowed, pretty sure if some podunk gas station doesn’t want you bringing grub into their restroom, MVP doesn’t want you turning their locker room into the seating area at a Jimmy Johns. This guy doesn’t seem like a fan of the Village People, but you never know, maybe if the powers that be at MVP curtail his extracurricular locker room activities he will have no choice but to head over to the YMCA. 

This summer the Jansma family went to Colorado in August for a family vacation. We stayed outside of Breckendridge in a glorified mobile home park. The “trailer” we were in was ok but not conducive to business time. Our last night of the trip we stayed in downtown Denver because we were flying out the next morning. There had been some talk of getting a second dog, although I was fundamentally opposed to the idea. We hit dinner and on our way back I convinced Shirley we should send the kids down to the hotel pool by themselves, surprisingly she was luke warm about the idea. However, the kids were unwilling to go down to the pool until I said we can get a second dog if they agreed to give us a little bit of private time, which Shirley assured them would only take a little bit of time, she further explained that men want sex and women try to avoid it the best they can. When we got back home we scoured the Humane Society website and found Pretzel. Pretzel is a terrible name for anything, but especially a dog, I managed to look past the name and set up an appointment to get the ball rolling on adopting Pretzel. When I got there they put me in a room and made me sit there for a while by myself. I think they may have been observing me while I was all by my lonesome to see if I passed the first test. Eventually a women came in and started grilling me with all kinds of questions, as if I was trying to get approved to adopt an actual human being not some inbred mutt that looked like Sid from Ice Age (he looks like Sid from Ice Age). Finally they gave me the green light to go out and meet him as if an improper meet up with an inappropriate human being would be a scarring experience for Pretzel. Pretzel lived with 114 other dogs and his owner shot him with BB’s and pellets, so I’m pretty sure I could have kicked him in the balls and he would have thought it was a sign of affection.

Pretzel became Murphy, but he actually is more of a Murray, if anyone has watched flight of the concords (sneaky good) he totally reminds me of Murray from that show. This past Saturday Shirley and the kids went up to Fremont so I invited a couple buddies to watch the Michigan game at my house. I had to run out to get some stuff for the game and when I returned home I was greeted by the smell of dog shit, either that or our sewer had backed up, it was dog shit, and the worst kind, the runny kind. Murphy shit on one of our rugs. I cleaned it up but couldn’t find any candles to mascaraed the smell of dog shit so I had to spray bath and body work body spray, that I found in the kid’s bathroom, all over the house as a form of air freshener. Nothing quit like the smell of runny dog shit mixed with body spray, it makes you feel alive and like you are at some fucked up place that is a hybrid of the nursery at church and the mall. My buddies came over and one of them warned me that it looked like Murphy was getting ready to squirt, but it was too late and he left me a couple piles of pudding under our kitchen table. Eventually he made his way up to our room and left two puddles of shit on our bedroom carpet. The good news is that he lost his appetite, the bad news is it didn’t stop him from puking all over our house for the remainder of the night.

Having a teenager and a ten year old boy in the house led us to believe that they would be up for the task of taking care of an additional dog. Not sure why we thought that since they could give two shits about our original dog Max. They come home from school and do everything in their power to ignore our dogs. The weird thing is that they both feel the need to take a shower every night even though they do absolutely nothing but play on their devices. Aiden takes particularly long showers (he’s the 13 year old) and looking back I know exactly what the purpose of a long shower would be. Apparently Parker also knows, I was downstairs watching Tv and could hear Parker saying to Aiden “why are you masturbating in there Aiden?” “Quit masturbating in there Aiden!” It warmed my heart. When Aiden got out of the shower he told Parker he wasn’t old enough to masturbate. If there was an age limit on masturbating, I paid it no heed when I was growing up. On a trip out with the kids a day or two later I asked Aiden what he meant by not being old enough and told him that he probably was if he really put his mind to it. That led to the kids asking me if I masturbated, my response was that everyone does which led to them saying “even your mom?” Their grandma has been dead for two plus years and it was gross to think about, and even though I should have said “no but your mom does” I didn’t. The funny thing is, Parker was in Shirley’s nightstand for some reason and pulled out her vibrator, I give her credit, she was quick on her feet and played it off like it was a back massager, and rubbed his back with it (yuck). I definitely don’t want my kids growing up with the burden me and my friends did, we all jerked off like we were getting castrated on our next birthday, but were too ashamed to let on that we did. The needless guilt, oh the needless guilt. There are enough things to feel bad about, jerking off shouldn’t be one of them.

Last Thursday I had to be in Allegan for court at 8:45 in the morning so I told my kids I could take them into school. Normally they take the bus and have to be at the bus stop by 6:25 which means Aiden has to awake at 5:45 so he can spend 15 minutes taking a shit (while on his phone). I do believe that most of that time is spent shitting and scrolling his phone, where as I take 45 seconds to shit but still spend no less than five minutes perusing the internet on my phone with my pants around my ankles and my butt cheeks firmly seated on the can. Aiden claimed the night before that he still wanted to ride the bus because that got him to school early enough to hang out with his friends, but when his alarm went off at 5:45 and I told him I could take him in he immediately said he wanted me to take him in to school. Hanging out with friends is over rated, especially when you can get an extra 45 minutes of sleep. There is a sweet spot that is rarely hit when dropping the kids off at their respective schools. One of the problems is that all of the schools in Caledonia are on the same street except one, the same two lane street with no traffic signals and only once entrance and exit point per school. However, Aiden’s school is the exception and is up the road so I dropped him off first. His school never has much of a line and he was easy to drop off and get out of the parking lot. Parker’s school is much more problematic but I managed to get him dropped off and exited with little to no hassle.

Upon entrance to the driveway into Parker’s school I could feel a shit brewing, which I looked over to Parker and said “I have to take a shit”. That tidbit of information probably had no impact on his day, but it needed to be said. I had various options as far as routes to take to get to Allegan, and the smartest and safest bet for purposes of dropping a deuce was to go straight down 100th street to the J&H family store which I knew by experience had 5 star restrooms. However, for some unknown reason I went the rural route and ended up at the J&H family store on 144th street just outside of Dorr. The restrooms there were the equivalent of a Motel 6. I waddled into the gas station with my cheeks tightly clenched and when I looked under the sole stall in the restroom I discovered work boots, and knew that shitting my pants was a likely possibility. First of all, you never want to be the encore performer in a stall previously occupied by someone sporting work boots, secondly, the clock was ticking and my sphincter was within seconds of giving out on me. I decided it was time to give into the latest fad of identifying withe the gender that you aren’t and I headed into the women’s restroom. I quickly locked the door and took care of my business, this wasn’t going to be a scenario where I browsed my phone, it was going to be an in and out. However, mid dump there was a light knock on the door. After wiping and washing my hands I hastily exited the women’s restroom with my head down and hurried out of the gas station, crisis avoided.

I have probably mentioned this in prior blogs, but Aiden and Shirley were born on the same date, November 13 and this past weekend we went up to the Soaring Eagle water park to celebrate, Aiden took two friends and Parker took one. Mount Pleasant may be one of the most depressing towns in Michigan, which is saying quite a bit since we also claim Flint, Saginaw, Battle Creek, and Benton Harbor, just to name a few towns that probably have a higher suicide rate than the national average. The main three industries up there seem to be party stores, cannabis shops, and car washes. I get alcohol and weed but don’t understand the unusual number of carwashes per capita up there. Normally I would have dreaded a waterpark but I knew my kids were old enough that I would not have to get in the water and possibly could avoid entering the water park all together. For the most part that was accurate, I went into the water park twice, once on Saturday to let Shirley know I was heading out to get Starbucks and on Sunday to tell the kids it was time to leave. I also knew that there was a good chance there would be some sexy time since we had two rooms, however, when we arrived Shirley informed me that Parker and his friend were going to be sleeping in our room.

I ended up hanging out in the room and watching football while the kids were in the waterpark and they spent a significant amount of time, to my surprise, in the waterpark. Initially, we made reservations for two lanes at the local bowling alley (I brought my own shoes and ball, that’s what a pro does) for 7pm but pushed them back for 8 because the kids were having so much fun in the waterpark. We made our way to the bowling alley and ended up eating there instead of going out. Bowling was fairly uneventful, but we did have to stop at a gas station to grab waters for the room and for a couple kids to take a piss. You know you are in shitsville when they give you a key to the restroom and tell you it is on the exterior of the building. When Shirley was done chaperoning the kids who had to piss she ordered me to drive near the gas station so I could get a peek at the gas station attendant. It was obviously a guy, but he had Ginger on his name tag, even though he looked like Meatloaf, he also had acrylic nails according to Shirley, regardless he was doing a half ass job of becoming a women, but I’m sure that’s fine if you reside in Mount Pleasant. When we got back to the hotel the kids went over to the other room and Shirley indicated that we could fornicate because she discovered how to bar the door even though she gave Parker a key. We went for it and wouldn’t you know it, Parker tried to barge in because the hot Cheetos were in our room. Everything still managed to work out and the trip was a success.

Prior to heading up to Mount Pleasant I stopped at Meijer to pick up some additional supplies for the trip. The U scan by the groceries had an insurmountable line so I went to the other side of the store only to find a lady in a mask, older, and even more feeble (if that’s possible) than Joe Biden, attempting to navigate a Uscan. She needed assistance 3 times and when it came to actually completing the transaction she just stood there while the credit card was processing (surprised she didn’t try to write a check) instead of loading her groceries up as the transaction took place. When the coupons spit out at the top of the machine she appeared to be completely flummoxed. She needed her receipt, no shopping trip is complete unless you get your receipt, eventually she figured out the receipt comes out at the bottom, but at least 12 people who had entered the U-scan after her had completed their transaction before she headed for the exit. Why do they allow old people to do anything? especially use the U-scan. They need to have one U-scan away from everything and if you are 65 or older, you have to use that U-scan, no attendant either, because if one person was tasked with monitoring that U-scan they would likely blow their fucking brains out. Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber was wrong, Old people while slow and deadly behind the while, can’t serve a purpose.

There is a buddy of mine who I play hoops with, it was his first Mother’ s day as a father and more importantly his wife’s first as a mother. I texted him this morning and asked him how it went, his response was “Flowers, gifts, cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner and did church and a hike, I think I did good.” My response was “you have set the bar quite high for future Mother’s days, rookie mistake but eventually you’ll figure it out. Mine went well, her whole family was over, dealing with them for six hours is better than any gift”. I have no recollection what I did for Shirley on her first Mother’s Day, but it wasn’t the trip to hell and back that I had this year trying to please the women who already has everything.

First of all, Mother’s Day, a wife’s birthday, Christmas, Valentines day, Sweetest Day (if you give into that farce of a holiday) and anything else that requires a gift for my wife has been made nearly impossible by Amazon, and to a lesser extent, other online retailers. If my wife actually needed to venture out of the house to buy shit for herself she would be limited to the 48 hours that exist on the weekend. She would never purchase anything during the week. That would allow for some wiggle room when it comes to purchasing gifts. Now all she needs is a couple minutes of idle time in her home office and within 23 minutes Amazon is delivering it. Man were those the golden years of gift giving when women were considered chattel and not allowed to own property, have a bank account, or access to any financial resources, women were much easier to shop for when society had it right.

Having not thought of any worthwhile Mother’s Day gift I asked a buddy Saturday morning after hoops what he was doing for his wife, his response, she’s not my mom. That attitude would work if I didn’t value sexy time anymore, but I do, and to a degree I want to show my appreciation for All Shirley does for me, or at least for the fact that she doesn’t bother me much when I am doing stuff I want to do. As I was leaving the gym I realized Shirley unintentionally dropped a great hint. On Thursday we were out on Green Lake in our new tritoon and she was wondering what type of cooler we should get for it. I flashed back to that moment in my memory and headed to Dick’s Sporting Goods.

I immediately went to the Yeti section, she actually doesn’t have any grossly overpriced hard coolers, we do have a grossly overpriced backpack cooler, which I blogged about last summer. There were a lot of different colors and sizes but I knew I needed one on wheels so my family could transport it from point A to B when I wasn’t around. Being Dutch the first thing you look at when evaluating a purchase is the price tag, there were no price tags on any of the coolers. Weird, but I agreed to play their game and brought the cooler up to the counter and after clipping off the anti shop lifting device found out the cooler was $500, I almost shit myself. I returned it and brought another cooler up as I passed the Igloo section of coolers. (I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the Igloo coolers, but I bet they had price tags). The new cooler was $450, still a shit your pants worthy price, but knowing the price point I was dealing with I was able to stiffen my sphincter and avoid a second pants shitting. When I arrived at home the kids and Shirley were gone, always awesome to come home to an empty house. I decided to search through coolers on line having some significant buyers remorse. I found a cooler out of Australia that was on sale and pulled the trigger. Ultimately, I packed up my Yeti and the mulching kit that Lowes sold me for my zero turn but didn’t fit my zero turn, and embarked the ultimate journey.

As I was returning the cooler the clerk asked me if there was anything wrong with it, I told him no, I just realized I didn’t want to pay $450 for a cooler. He replied “understandable”. Lowes was not as smooth. I had ordered the mulching kit last summer after my zero turn had arrived. The primary reason was I was sick of listening to my kids bitch when I sent them out to rake and pick up the grass clippings, it was if I was asking them to pour 25 yards (I think that’s a lot) of concrete. I knew with my limited mechanical capabilities I would have to farm the installation out, I didn’t get around to bringing it in for service until a couple weeks ago and found out it was the wrong mulching kit. I went in to Lowes with no receipt and made the mistake of utilizing the toothless customer service rep. I am not sure how she couldn’t find the record of my purchase, but she couldn’t and told me tough luck. I only got a little bit angry, I’m not use to hearing no, but I didn’t lose it because I just wanted to get out of sight of her toothless mouth, it was unnerving. Pretty sure the toothless clerk gets much less guff from disgruntled customers than those that have a full set of chiclets.

Ironically when I returned home from my return and attempted return the first thing Shirley told me was that she found a really nice Igloo cooler at Costco. I’m still puzzled as to why she didn’t just buy it, because that is what she does, she just buys things with little thought. Regardless, I felt I needed to show her the cooler I purchased for her, I didn’t mention it was pink, but it was pink, making it as if it was adorned with herpes scabs. Having been married for 13 plus years I knew there would be no talking her into the pink cooler so I handed her my phone and told her to email the company and cancel the order. A few minutes later I received an email that the order had been terminated. I felt like I really dodged a bullet because unveiling the pink cooler on Mother’s Day could have easily ruined Mother’s Day. That night I was able to purchase a cooler that was rubber stamped by Shirley, it holds 60 cans (not sure if they can all be beer, but they probably will be at least 90/10 beer to soda) and 20lbs of ice. It’s Grizzly bear proof and claims to keep ice for 4 days, not quite as impressive as the 7 days Yeti claims for most of their hard coolers, but impressive (and probably bullshit) none the less. I’m sure there is absolutely no recourse if your ice melts in 3 days.

Sunday morning I ran to get coffee and stuff for breakfast. I had the kids, since they are 10 and 12, write in the card I purchased on their behalf for Shirley. When I went to write in the card I picked out for her, Parker had written his message in my card. Guess they still need some supervision. The message in my card indicated that Shirley was somewhat of a mom to me, but in a good way. Primarily because she is my go to IT person and because she seems to always be able to find things (she even finds stuff for the kids). I also indicated that if she would stop putting stuff in places where she is the only one who can locate the item, we would stop asking her to find stuff or us. Do all wives and mothers do this to their husbands and children?

Besides the cooler, I bought Shirley a Tritoon boat hat with a happy face on it and two pairs of shorts for pickle ball, I would say for working out, but I have given up on that dream. What’s the deal with active shorts for women? Are women looking for the least attractive completely unsexy shorts? I’m not talking yoga pants here, you ladies are doing fine with those, shorts though, that’s another story. That’s why I felt compelled to purchase the shorts I saw at Dick’s they were moderately attractive and a tad bit sexy. Surprisingly the shorts and hat were a hit as well as the card I gave her. So far so good, now I just needed to get through having her entire family over, not an easy task. The good news is it was a fairly nice day and the women folk were out on the porch most of the afternoon drinking their wine, because that’s what they do. I was tasked with smoking the meat and made a pork shoulder and a brisket. However, I had felt I made some real headway with Shirley’s sister’s husband and knowing he has a sweet tooth made apple crips along with a Pecan pie (he has a nut allergy, and based on what happened yesterday I should have forced a piece down his throat).

The apple crips and pie were constructed in the afternoon and placed in the oven right as we started eating dinner. The brother in law drove separately and was at our house for approximately 18 minutes prior to leaving with their dog as if the dog needed to leave and he was just doing it a favor. Shirley’s grandma is 94, she’s healthy as a horse for 94, but she can’t remember much of anything. Every time she comes to our house she asks if it is new, as in, did we do a renovation. We answer yes, and then two minutes later she asks if this is new. Unfortunately, she still remembers my name, once she doesn’t I will be off the hook. Regardless, she somehow managed to remember that I made pecan pie and when dinner was over she started grilling me as to when the pie was going to be done, I told her shortly, and then she kept asking. I pulled the pie out before the apple crips but ideally it needs two hours to set, a minor oversight on my part. I then pulled out the apple crisp and gave her some of that thinking that would make her forget about the pecan pie. No such luck, she had no more than put down her spoon from finishing the apple crips and she was on to busting my balls again about the apple crips. I left the kitchen to go take care of my smoker and to get a breath of fresh air, only to return to grandma eating a soupy piping hot piece of pecan pie, she loved it. Pretty sure when I’m 94 I’ll be dead, so good for her.

Last week I was cleaning up the kitchen when I looked at my phone only to discover this email from a parent on my team:

Hi Coach,

We wanted to send this email to share our thoughts on a couple things.

For starters, thank you so much for being willing to coach kids basketball this year. We know it takes a lot of time on your part and we are very grateful. We had the opportunity to coach and didn’t feel we were knowledgeable enough about the sport, so we are very grateful for people like you who are.

We also want to bring some concerns to your attention. Almost half the team is comprised of 3^rd grade boys, and after speaking with 4 of the families, I know they are all frustrated with not having an opportunity to touch the ball during the games. They never get passed to, and they aren’t given the opportunity to bring the ball in, so their only opportunity to touch the ball is if by some chance (as the shortest kids on the court) they are able to get a rebound. We realize a lot of this you aren’t able to control. We just don’t want all these 3^rd graders to lose their love of basketball and not want to play next year. We know you are paying attention to so many things during the game setting, and we know you want every kid to have a good experience. So we thought we would just bring this to your attention in case you hadn’t noticed. And with that we have a couple suggestions…

*maybe only have the 3^rd graders bring the ball in when it’s our ball. This way they are guaranteed to at least touch the ball once during the games.

*maybe put all the third graders out together during a shift…this would give them the opportunity to work together and get touches on the ball.

These are just a couple ideas we thought of, and maybe you have some other great ideas. With three games left we just really want these kids to have an equal opportunity to participate in the game setting. Thank you so much for your time.

For a little background, I make sure to play all the kids an equal amount of time, or as equal as possible when I have my full roster of 11 players present. In the first game I played my son Parker the least so that it didn’t look like I was playing favorites. That being said I have run into a situation where all of the third graders on my team suck, once in a while you get a younger kid who is a generational talent and can hang with the older kids or, in the rare instance, excel past the older kids. However, it isn’t a third and fourth grade thing, it’s a you’re good or you’re not good thing. Some of the fourth graders, my son included, aren’t very good. There are two kids who have what it takes to consistently put the ball in the basket, at the fourth grade level that’s one out of ten times they shoot. I didn’t respond to the emailer, instead on Saturday I had all of the third graders start the game together. There are five of them so it worked out perfectly. 5 minutes into the game when it was time to sub them out we were down 6-0 and had taken zero shots. In real basketball it was like being down 20-0 after five minutes of play. I pulled the third graders but for one (because two of my fourth graders were missing) and we were able to claw our way back into the game. I have two point guards and one of them was missing so I tried to keep my one point guard in as much as possible. He fired up more shots than James Harden does in a typical night but he kept us in it until the very end of the game. However, with 50 seconds left and our team leading by a point he fired up a shot instead of pulling it back and draining the clock. Granted, I could have called a timeout, but I’m not doing that, this is 3rd/4th grade youth league basketball. Ultimately, the other team scored and my point guard ended up throwing up an unanswered prayer as time expired.

To say my point guard is a head case, is like saying Dennis Rodman was eccentric, this kid is me as an adult, he hates losing and blames everyone else when it happens (although I have a hard time blaming other people when I am losing in singles tennis). After the game when I was trying to calm him down the refs (who were teenage girls) informed me that my point guard had done a double barrel bird flip to the other team. Prior to being informed of his misstep I was telling him that he needed to stop being such head case and that he had played well. His response “I played well, my teammates didn’t. While his point was valid, it was still a poor attitude and a sign that he may be this way for the rest of his playing career unless there is a dramatic change. 

On Monday as I was getting ready to close out my day and head home I was treated to a second email from a parent, although this parent wanted to remain anonymous and used a burner email account:

Hello. 

There are a few things I am hoping to address with you before the game this weekend. 

I will keep my sons name anonymous as he is good friends with Cornelius (not his real name, but I put that in there to protect his anonymity)

We were sitting down by the hoop on the far side of the gym and during the last 5 minutes of the game, we heard Corny shouting some very upsetting things to his teammates and someone on the sideline (im assuming that was his mother) about his team. He had shouted “its not my fault my team sucks” and then he yelled at another player for losing the player he was supposed to guard. My son said the teammate he yelled at was Adrian or Adriana (not his real name either) ? He isnt completely sure which one he goes by. He also said that Corny wore an old jersey which was the same number as Adrian ( im going to call him Adrian because my son said its Ade or Adrian for sure) and it was confusing who was supposed to guard someone as the other teams players were either both on Corny or both Adrian. 

Then, at the end of the game, he clear as day, flipped off the other team before walking off the court. Not only did myself, my wife see this, but so did parents of kids from the other team. It was a very embarrassing moment. To hear the other team say they are thankful they will not have to play our team again because of one childs attitude is heartbreaking (there is no way any kid on the other team made mention of how glad they were they didn’t have to play us again because of my point guards antics). Your coaching came up by other parents wondering why you allow Corny to play as he is CONSTANTLY throwing fits on the court and cutting down players/his own team and calling fouls when that is NOT his place. He also yelled out last game that “its not my fault i have to do everything on this team” (He does, including shoot way too much)

My son also said a couple of weeks ago, a player on their team fell and hit his head and was sitting out for a good part of the game and began crying (it was Adrian) because it hurt and he overheard Corny tell him to grow up and stop being a baby. This is NOT how you treat your teammates. I dont know about that game as i was not able to attend. I am just going by what my child told me and i fully believe him. (yeah I believe all the stuff my kid tells me too, what a loser)

Now, i understand they are all children, but as i have stated, my son is good friends with him (if Corny is so reprehensible why does this dipshit allow his kid to be friends with him?) but also stated he never wants to be on the same team as him and if he could, he would quit this team now because its no longer enjoyable when you have to play with someone like that. He has also stated he isnt the only older boy on the team that feels that way and other younger ones feel the same.  

I dont care how good a child is, as soon as they start acting like that during a game or practice, they should be benched immediately. 

I know you cannot hear/see everything that is happening on the court, thats why i feel it is necessary to bring up to you because those actions do unfortunately fall back on you as a coach by how other teams look at it and it isnt fair when its not something you may see or hear. 

Maybe sportsmanship is something that needs to be brought up at practice tonight.

I signed up to coach only because I wanted to give Parker a chance to play in the Caledonia youth league. Had I known what a truly miserable experience it would be I definitely would have told Parker tough luck there wasn’t a roster spot for him. Being a criminal defense attorney is stressful enough, I don’t need to have added drama in my life as a result of coaching 3rd and 4th grade basketball. (I already create more drama than a normal person could take with my confrontational personality) On top of all of this, I ran into a coach that I had coached against the previous week in the MVP locker room. I was reading the email about 3rd graders to my buddy after we had played pickle ball and the guy overheard me and said “hey, you sound familiar”. We began talking about youth sports and he asked me if I ran any plays. I told him I tried in practice but my players have the memory Shirley’s grandma and when I tried to run the play in a scrimmage it was like they hadn’t even been there to learn the actual play. This guys’ team runs two plays, and they had scouted one of their opponents. It’s parents like the ones who decided to send me emails, and coaches like that guy, that have youth sports on the wrong trajectory. Granted, Corny’s mom isn’t doing him any favors (when I use the name Corny instead of his real name he seems a lot more harmless, maybe that should be his punishment for his behavior, his mom should change his name to Cornelius) I sent Corny’s mom the email from the anonymous (ball less parent) and she denied most of his behavior. She also sent an apology email to the parents on the team that significantly minimized his abhorrent behavior. (I admit it was terrible behavior, but the kid can ball!)

Granted, back when I was growing up, we didn’t have email. So, parents couldn’t go all passive aggressive with the protection of an electronic form of communication, where there would be no real time response. If you had a problem with the coach you had to talk to the coach. Now parents can just fire off emails with few consequences and the threat of absolutely no actual face to face conflict. Had any of these parents had the kohonas to actually speak to me in person I guarantee it would not have ended well for them. 

Where do I go from here? How do I extrapolate myself from the situation while inflicting the most collateral damage? Well, this weekend I picked up a roast from Costco, it was a beautiful hunk of meat that I was looking forward to eating on Sunday. However, since it was so nice out Shirley suggested I smoke a pork shoulder. So, the next opportunity to have the roast was last night. Shirley works from home and I reminded her to get the roast in. I headed to pickle ball and as I was leaving I noticed a text from Shirley “I had to run to the outlet mall to pick up clothes for the conference that I am going to” my response was “that’s funny I could have sworn you had clothes in your closet when I left this morning, were they all stolen?” Regardless when I got home I went to work on making mashed potatoes and Brussel sprouts to go with the delicious roast that was in the oven. When Shirley got home she pulled the roast out of the oven only to discover it was still raw, she had put the roast in the wrong oven, or in the alternative she had turned on the wrong oven, take your pick. Sitting here looking back at it I now realize the solution to my problem, hand over the coaching reins to Shirley. Problem solved!