Coach for just one day

Cue the Thompson Twins music (a billion weird-o points to anyone getting that reference).

Shifter here. (duh).

So one of the reasons I haven't been posting, the only reason I haven't been posting, is that I grew a third arm last month and it took a while to learn how to coordinate it while typing. Kidding. I've been crazy busy. Now, most of our IR's, and our non-I co-blogger, are at least as crazy busy as I, so I won't bitch too much. But crazy busy = less posts. And third arm, well, that = all kinds of crap. But I digress.

One thing that kept me crazy busy was hauling my daughters around all day Saturday to various kid like activities. My beloved was working that day, so I was, well, not working on work and instead kid-hauling. Kid hauling isn't as bad as working if you have cool kids, which we do. But when you're done with working you have a finished project, or at least a pay check. When you're done with kid-hauling, you have more kid-hauling to do. So one of the things I kid-hauled to was an indoor soccer practice, my older daughter's first.

This was through our local YMCA, the folks who brought us Dreadmills and tiny hamster like tracks. It was not, as it turns out, a high stress event. I got there with my kids and found that one team was already warming up and the other, my daughters, seemed not to exist. So I told my daughter to go out and start kicking a ball around, and went and kicked a ball to her to encourage her. Next thing I know a young lady who was evidently the referee came up to me and asked if I would like to be coach. Those of you who know me are laughing right now. I said, calmly I thought, hell no. She said "it's easy" and I said "I don't know how to play soccer." Thinking that perhaps knowing how to play soccer was a prerequisite to coaching soccer. She said "you just have them do some drills" and I said "what are those?" She said "Ok, I'll do it." But then she seemed to be too busy and I was feeling guilty, so I told her I would tell the kids to do whatever she told me to tell them, and hence Coach Shifter was born.

I wish you could have seen it, dear IRs. There stood Shifter, pretending to know what I was doing, yelling encouraging things like "Good job! Good block! Kick the ball that way!" I was most proud of the "kick the ball that way" comment, as it couldn't possibly be wrong. Whichever way was the right way, that's the way I meant. The other coach, who it turned out had played soccer professionally 20 years ago, just looked at me like I had grown a third arm. The other parents couldn't bitch, though, cause they weren't out there coaching. It was just me.

So coaching lasted an hour. One of the longer hours of my life. From time to time I'd wonder how this was happening to me. I hadn't even meant to stay and watch! I was just going to drop her off for an hour and go home. And now I was a coach. And I sucked! Now maybe 8 year old kids don't know if you suck, but I sure knew. I mean it's all for fun anyway, and they weren't even keeping score, and, and, and. But still, if you're going to do something for fun, shoudlnt' you at least do it right? Or is that weird. Blessedly, the hour only lasted about six months and then it was over.

I'd like to say it was fun but that would be an overstatement. Kind of like Sarah Palin overstated the Bridge to Nowhere thing. A bald-faced lie? Yes, that kind of overstatement. But my daughter loved it. "Are you going to be my coach next week too Daddy?" "No, your mother is bringing you next week." Just to be sure.