And the Biggest Douche of the Day Award goes to..

Sometimes I face situations when I'm really not sure how I should be acting and the one thought that comes to my mind is ... "If I were blogging about this, what would make it better?" haha. Okay not usually but today when I was at work getting yelled at by a crazed mother of a 6th grade boy I thought to myself "Congratulations lady, you're making my blog."

As not many of you know (because it's not something I like to brag about) I've been reffing 5th and 6th grade boys basketball on Saturdays well actually this time around was only my second time but it feels like I've been doing it for years. I have a story to tell but it's not something that can be typed into text, it's a story of raw emotion and hand gestures. I'll do my best.

For those of you who have never been around youth recreation basketball leagues:
- Somewhere there is an unwritten code for at least one parent or coach each game from each team to act like a total douche bag.
- 5th and 6th graders are not good
- It's pretty hard to find people that are willing to referee games as ugly as these

So back to the story...
In each gym there are two refs on the court and one keeping score and each game they rotate. At 1:00 pm this after noon it happened to be my turn on the score table. With about three minutes left in the game a woman comes over to me and asks me what the foul count is... I tell her 6 to 1 ... I thought she was wondering when the 1 and 1 bonus was coming but to my surprise she just starts yelling at me "EXACTLY! DO YOU SEE THE SCORE?" Her team had more fouls called on them and was also losing by twenty points. Well as she rants and raves about how terrible the officials are doing I continue to try to pay attention to the game. In the middle of her obnoxious complaints I look at her and say in an annoyed tone, "I really don't know what you want me to do ... I'm not reffing this game. I don't know why you are getting so mad at me ... I'm keeping score ... what do you want me to do..." etc. etc. (every ... in that quote she was saying something whiny that I didn't care to hear, it was like Charlie Browns teacher)

While the game is still going a coach from another team steps in and tells her to back off. She leans against the wall next to the score table and wouldn't ya know her team gets another foul called on them. Now I'm not sure what was going on in my mind when the next thing that came out of my mouth did but I think it's just the fact that I honestly love getting people riled up even if it means I am going to suffer the consequences, but I said with a smile "Oh, that was another one. I think your team is just fouling more." ... "NO THEY ARE NOT! YOU GUYS ARE ... EW(sigh/weird noise) YOU GUYS ARE AWFUL" blah blah blah blah she keeps going it's not even fun for me to listen to anymore. She had so much emotion in her voice, it was dramatic and horrid. It was the kind of sound that makes wild animals weep.

End of game. Lady goes home, right? Wrong.

The two refs from the game come and sit down next to me...oh bad move on their part. Her angry yell cry voice escalates and is now ringing off the walls in the tiny middle school auxiliary gym. She totally attacks and rips apart those innocent first time referee girls. It was so chaotic that there is no way I can remember everything she said but here are some pretty sweet high lights of her rant:

-She paid money to get a good experience for her son (How do you think the sons experience watching his mom make a fool out of herself during and after his game was? Probably worth the money.)

-The two refs and I are the most cocky people she's ever seen and we think we are so cool just because we're on the court with our whistles (Hi I'm terrified of people and not cocky, one girl reffing was from Fillmore they dont raise them to be cocky, and the other girl was a first time ref-scared out of her shorts... we're not cocky, bih)

-She could do a better job than we could (I said, "You could? You know what you should go down to the city offices and apply because I'm sure they would love to have your help" But what I really wanted to do was tackle her and shove my whistle so far up her nose that every time she breathed it would sound like she was calling a foul)

Okay this is my favorite part of the whole story:

So after telling each of the three of us individually how terrible we are at life she decided that she wanted our names, she was calling the city and she was going to get us fired. She was sick of seeing us ref and meh. Well first of all I know we are in no real danger because my boss hates parents like her. So I told her my name and, get this, she asked if she could borrow my pen! Ha! Yeah right... okay let me just try to quote this one out, I really wish I just had a video of the whole thing..

CW (Crazy Woman): "CAN I BORROW YOUR PEN?"
Me: "No!"
CW: *finds a spare pencil on the table and grabs a napkin from our pizza. Earlier a guy tried to write something down on that napkin for me with the same pencil and he got really frustrated with it because it wasn't working so I was just smiling while she tried the same thing because I knew it wasn't going to work.* "Do you have a piece of paper?!"
Me: "No... we don't actually have paper for you to write our names down to report us. Damn."
CW: *grabs a paper out from under the score book that happens to be My time card*
Me: *swiped it out of her hands* "Thats my time sheet!"
CW: "I NEED A PIECE OF PAPER!"
Me: "I don't know what you want me to do about it, I don't have paper"
CW: *Opens our pizza box like she's gonna spit on our food or something and rips a huge ass piece of cardboard off of it and then writes our names down.

So after she gets our names she walks away but only makes it like 3 steps. And I am thinking to myself..I should get her name to see if my boss knows her AND I want to put her name in my blog about this haha. So I walk over to her and I'm like "Hey...um whats your name?" She replies "NO!" and storms away. I said "Alright, well you have a good day okay? I'll see you later!" bahaha!

Thats about the gist of the story, I probably left out some details because it just completely took me off guard that someone could act like that in public...maybe in your own home if you want to act like that go ahead, but why?. I'm not sure what her objective was in screaming at us the way she did. If I were objective patrol I would guess that she was just trying to make a scene and also see if she could win the "Biggest Douche of the Day Award" She blew the competition out of the water!

Now I understand that if I were in any type of position of authority like a director or programmer that this blog would be completely inappropriate but I'm just a ref so stick it. This is my point. People blame the youths intolerable behavior on professional athletes for setting such bad examples of sportsmanship when what they should really be doing is taking a step back and looking at themselves. What they are saying in the stands, in the car on the way home and probably even at the dinner table. Parents..quit yelling everything and anything that comes to mind at your twelve-year old's basketball games. Tell them good job or give them a hug or something.

To that crazy lady who I will probably see every Saturday until March:
I forgive you for being so damn crazy, and I'm sorry if you're having a rough week or something.

End of Story.