{"id":3456,"date":"2014-07-07T12:48:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T18:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=3456"},"modified":"2014-07-07T15:19:57","modified_gmt":"2014-07-07T21:19:57","slug":"order-on-the-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=3456","title":{"rendered":"Order ON the court!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just saw my first 10-and-under tennis match today.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Or as I call it: Monkeys\u00a0w<\/span>ith Rackets.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Or as I call it ten minutes in: Everybody line up so I can start clockin\u2019 heads, \u2018cause I can\u2019t stand this.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Or you.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Because the kick in the pants in all this\u00a0is that you can watch from the sidelines.\u00a0\u00a0But you can\u2019t coach.\u00a0\u00a0In other words, y<\/span>ou can see everything in the world going wrong, but you can\u2019t say boo about it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What you WANNA say?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Hey!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Head\u2019s up, Schmuck!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Here\u2019s another orange dotted ball fer ya because the two you already have seem to be in the wrong pocket and you can\u2019t access them without taking up a full thirty minutes of the excruciating one hour we have together.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And your partner isn\u2019t any help because they\u2019re peeking through the fence at the field behind the courts while they could be handing you one or two of the twenty balls THEY have shoved\u00a0in THEIR shorts.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So I\u2019m happy to sit here in the ninety degree heat at 8:30 in the ante meridian\u00a0just to feed you the balls so we can all walk away with our sanity intact.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

What you ACTUALLY say??<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Yoo-hoo.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Hi, Server!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Would you like another ball?<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

While the monkeys may have perfected the use of their opposable thumbs – despite the tennis coach’s best efforts,\u00a0they haven’t\u00a0perfected\u00a0much else.<\/span>\u00a0 As a result,\u00a0the whole match\u00a0is complete chaos.\u00a0 Tennis court-sized chaos.\u00a0 Chaos that is worse than any cubscout meeting<\/a> or wrestling match<\/a> I\u2019ve ever been to.\u00a0 <\/span>There\u2019s so much milling around and facing the wrong direction and calling balls out that are actually in (and vice versa) that you become worried the screaming in your head might soon\u00a0be heard by those on the court.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When you can\u2019t take it anymore, to\u00a0balance out the mental screaming with\u00a0the\u00a0no-coaching rule, you settle on a\u00a0series of \u201cgentle reminders.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Hey, Folks.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>One idea here would be to talk among yourselves and review the 10-and-under court lines with eachother.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Another gentle reminder might go something like this, \u201c<\/span>Yep.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Sure is hot!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Why don\u2019t you get a drink as you\u2019re switching sides.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Speaking of which, should you actually be switching sides?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Because what\u2019s the score?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Do we switch sides on odd or even scores?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And since we\u2019re talking sides now, which side of the court do you start serving from?<\/span>\u00a0 Did it seem like\u00a0<\/span>some of you were serving from the incorrect side?\u00a0\u00a0Why don’t you\u00a0<\/span>all just plan to keep eachother on track with that.\u00a0\u00a0Now, w<\/span>ho wants a drink?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>This nice lady wants a drink!!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>You better BELIEVE she wants a drink.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Believe.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It.<\/span><\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually the match dies its painful, monkey-pox death.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And as you\u2019re walking off the courts, you keep up your stream of gentle reminders, \u201cDo you have your water bottle?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>How \u2018bout your RACKET?!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018Cause what were you\u00a0just here doing?!?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>What were you\u00a0doing it with??<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>That thing you were just doing it with would be pretty important to take.\u00a0 Right?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And how \u2018bout your heads??<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Everyone got their heads on?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Yeah?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Locked down tight?!?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>YEAH???\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It goes without saying that the whole thing is eerily similar to conducting a work meeting with people over whom you have no direct supervisory authority.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Yep.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Very, very similar.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>INCLUDING that drinking part.\u00a0 Believe.\u00a0 It.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just saw my first 10-and-under tennis match today.\u00a0 Or as I call it: Monkeys\u00a0with Rackets. Or as I call it ten minutes in: Everybody line up so I can start clockin\u2019 heads, \u2018cause I can\u2019t stand this.\u00a0 Or you. Because the kick in the pants in all this\u00a0is that you can watch from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3456"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3466,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3456\/revisions\/3466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}