Friday, November 12, 2010

Jerseys Or Fish Food?

Today was basketball team photo day!

I got there earlier than coach. Part of the photo day ritual is the passing out of team jerseys. The jerseys sat there in a locker while the team congregated outside. After several minutes of hanging around, I took action and started sorting them carefully by size. Home jerseys. Road jerseys. Home shorts. Road shorts. Soon a pile of like-sized clothing packages were laid in neat piles on the floor.

One of the players came in and asked if I needed any help. "I'm all right," I said. "Maybe you could just have everyone line up outside the door?"

I overestimated his attention span. He missed the "outside the door" part. Players started lumbering in.

"Guys, could you give me a single-file line?" I asked. I overestimated their attention span. They missed the "Guys, could you please give me a single-file line?" part.

After helping the first player, I turned back and saw the tidy piles being energetically shredded. Like Christmas gifts on a peasant road. Or butchers taking an accidental bath after work in the pirhana's river.

Lesson learned when dealing with teenagers. Fewer words. More cattle prods.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When/if you figure it out, you can come help me! There are times, when I feel two teenagers is like dealing with an entire basketball team!!!