Bleacher Madness

by

Patti Dickinson

Saturday morning before dawn, my husband Wood and I, and our high school freshman daughter left the house to drive thirty minutes away to a volleyball tournament.  Five teams were competing.  I had a book and my knitting, for the time that Meghan was refing and not playing. Wood and I were lucky enough to get seats at the very top of the bleachers, guaranteeing us a wall-backrest. We were staking out our territory! 

I am a people-watcher at heart.  I have a very wide nosy streak. I have been known to do the universal signal for "quiet", vertical index finger to lips, to Wood, in order to better listen to conversations on planes, in restaurants, well, just about anywhere.  One time, seated at a table at a nice restaurant, I watched a couple have an altercation at the next table, figured out quickly that this problem involved his mother-in-law and she got up from the table and left him sitting there by himself. Walked right out the door and never looked back. He stayed and finished his meal.  My husband would have missed the whole thing, left to his own, not-nosy devices.  

Back to the volleyball game ---  

Two people over from where I am sitting, is my next suspect. She is a woman in her late-forties.  (I heard her tell someone that she was 47....)  Everytime someone on her daughter's team made a mistake, she would sigh loudly, and shake her head.  Two mistakes in a row, and she would shout, "GET IN THE GAME.  GET THE BALL OVER, GIRLS."  (Isn't that kind of obvious?  This is Volleyball 101, getting the ball over.)  Third mistake?  Ohhh boy. This brings her to her feet, leaning dangerously over the row in front of her, red-faced, stabbing her finger at the players screaming, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?  TALK TO EACH OTHER. MOVE.  ARE YOU PLAYING VOLLEYBALL OR NOT????"  Then she sits down, looking exhausted.  Now wouldn't you just have loved to be her daughter?  Your mom, who probably needs a quick blood pressure check and a Valium IV, sitting in the bleachers, not there to celebrate the good stuff you're doing, but to keep a running critical commentary of your game. 

I mean this is the kind of rage someone would be justified in having if their grandmother just got run over.  Twice.   

And we wonder why our current generation has no manners???? She certainly didn't discriminate....everyone was an equal opportunity target for her rage.  Refs, kids, coaches. My mom would have said that she was "spitting nails". 

Either way....this woman spent the same twelve hours on the bleachers that we did.  She spent it screaming.  We spent it watching our daughter get some wonderful hits, and make some mistakes.  Life, right?  She is the reason that parents now have to sign "Code of Conduct" agreements.  I kept thinking to myself, "Why in the world is this woman so upset about high school volleyball?"  What am I missing here?  Why the rage?  Why the screaming?"  

I wonder how she would react if the next time she made a mistake, those around her reacted the way she did.