Bring your checkbook

It's tennis time which means that I'm going to have lots and lots of stories about how incredibly ridiculous a simple sport becomes in the hands of "professionals."

I am being bombarded already with flyers telling me how much I will owe for sweat suits, uniforms (they get a new one EVERY YEAR), balls, spirit wear, food, booster dues and sponsorship monies. Economic hard times? Forget about it. Bring your checkbook to the meeting, that's what they have in big bold letters at the top of the flyers.

And again with the fake birthdays. I cannot take the fake birthdays anymore!!! I wrote about this last year but I think I deleted it because I didn't want anyone from her team to find it and read it...but the coach assigns every girl a fake birthday if her birthday doesn't fall during the tennis season so that no one feels left out. Then the parents are asked to bake up treats for the occasion and then they all sing happy birthday even if their birthdays are in August. I honestly have never seen anything as silly as this in all my life. I just took a quick scan of the fake birthdays (all scheduled out on a calendar!) and every single girl has a fake birthday assigned to her except MY DAUGHTER who does have a birthday that falls within the tennis season.

It makes me want to scream. This is what is wrong with kids these days. We have to make everything even stevens even if your kid sucks and my kid is spectacular--they will both get an award so no one goes home sad. Boo hoo hoo. As a another example (not tennis related but along the same lines), for senior superlatives this year they have things like BEST SMILE, BEST PERSONALITY, DAZED AND CONFUSED, and MOST ATHLETIC but do you think they have anything that says SMARTEST? Nope. We do not want to celebrate academic achievement IN SCHOOL now would we? Don't get me started because I can go on for days...

Last year we had to donate to a food fund then were also asked to bring something each week to boot and when I questioned them about the money they went into a long spiels about the cost of food as if I am some sort of idiot. Of course I know how much food costs, but do we really need to bring a huge can of Twizzlers and peanut M&M's for the players? If they cut out the crap they'd have plenty of money for food. Let's use a little common sense, people. These moms go crazy about the food and I'm a mom myself and I am telling you I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. They police the food and watch how much you take and it's all so petty. I stay as far away as possible from these people because I have a habit of saying what's on my mind and that doesn't go over too well with the politically correct folks who love appearing virtuous while deep inside they are as mean as the day is long.

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll be back with more shortly!