In which I reveal myself as a less-than-committed sports parent.
For the past three weeks, Middle Sister has been attending twice-weekly summer soccer “camp,” which runs from 6 to 8 PM, or right during the time in which I’m cooking and serving dinner. It’s also right during prime thunderstorm hours, especially in the heat of July.
Last week, on that very hot day, the team parents got an email:
Coach [name withheld to protect the guilty] is going to try to still have training tonight from 6-8 PM. Hopefully the storms will pass through either before or after the session.
It is suggested that parents stick around or arrange for another parent (or an upperclassman with a car) to account for your daughter in case the storms roll in while we are on the field and we would need to get all of the girls into cars in a hurry.
So we parents are supposed to stick around in our cars in an open parking lot when it’s 100 degrees outside during a longer-than-two-hour practice just in case it rains? That’s your genius plan for keeping my kid safe from a possibly dangerous weather situation?
Five minutes later we got another email: “On second thought, practice is cancelled.”
Good.
But tonight, while it’s 10 degrees cooler, we’ve got thunderstorms threatening. I’m consoling myself with the fact that we live so close to the school that I could probably drive to the parking lot faster than the soccer kids could get there from the field. And I’m going to keep the phone handy during dinner, because if it gets any darker out there, I want to be ready to zip right over there.
Really, coach, when there’s any yellow and red in the radar, it’s time to call it a day.
And the thunder rumbles…