Basketball Bollocks

Andy did not want to do basketball.  But since we had given him the choice to choose a sport and he didn't make a choice, we did.  And we told him that after this season if he still hated it he wouldn't have to do it again and could choose a different sport.  He reluctantly agreed to continue forth with basketball through the Boys and Girls Club.

The first meeting we attended actually took less time than actually getting there.  And I was okay with that, however the notice for the meeting specifically stated: Your student will not receive their jersey if the meeting is missed.  They didn't hand out any jersey's and the meeting basically was a quick review of the paperwork I already had.  Basically it was a meeting for a man to read the rules off of a piece of paper we already had from when we signed up for basketball.  Then he directed everyone to pick up a copy of the rules which we already had gotten during sign-ups.  They didn't even give us a schedule for when games or practices would start, we were told we would be contacted.

One day, the mister was contacted via text message that there would be a team meeting at 5:30.  I took the opportunity to stay home and have some quiet time.  I thought it was a bit short notice to send a text message a few hours ahead of time instead of providing at least a day notice to arrange our schedules accordingly.  My feeling of unease regarding basketball got worse when around 5:45 I get a text from the mister telling me that he and another parent don't see other parents or the coaches.  Well that sucks!  Turns out the coaches were VERY late to the meeting.  The meeting took a few minutes to review rules again and for the coaches to introduce themselves.  After that meeting we still had no clue about what times or where the practices and games would be held.  Still no team jersey by this point.

So on a Friday night my husband gets a text from the coach saying that practice will take place tomorrow at 1pm.  Since basketball isn't supposed to start until November and he has a prior commitment to pottery we advised the coach he would not be attending that practice.  The following Tuesday my husband gets another text from the coach telling him that Andy's team has practice at 4pm, this is 4 hours before practice time!  Talk about short notice!  It didn't interfere with our schedule that day but that type of short notice isn't going to work for us.  Then about an hour before the practice is supposed to start the coach cancels the practice!  By this point I am getting a little fed up with the poor scheduling, short notice and god awful text messages.  Here have a look:

Text messages from coach: 

Hi hawk prnts, jus a remindr prac tomorrow. Pls let me kmow if u will not b able to make it. If we don't hav enough we will cncl lst time only 3 plyrs. Thk u.

Hawk prnts, jus an update. We hav to cxl prac sat n move it to friday instead. Srry, for any inconvienence. 4:00-5:15. C u tue/

Hawk prnts, just realized it starts getting dark at 5:15, so we will hav to chng the time to 4:00-5:15. Srry about that. Thks. (How is this possible?  Did they suddenly forget the time change we JUST had?)

No, I am not joking.  And this is a pet peeve of mine.  Especially since the majority of people use smartphones that not only fix spelling but can even auto-complete your words using predictive text.  WHY are you TRYING to sounds like a moron?  Had I known right off the bat that this was how the mister was being notified of practices I would have jumped someone's shit much sooner, alas I was clueless.  But I digress, as usual, so read on.

Come Friday we get a text telling us that there will be practice that afternoon, just 3 hours short of the practice time.  We had already made dinner and evening plans with friends.  I was not having it!  I wanted Andy to be a part of a team, learn schedule adherence/attendance and get some exercise.  My husband and I decided we would drop him from the Boys and Girls Club basketball league and would have him sign up for other things and continue running with me.  Andy does relatively better on a schedule he can follow on a calendar than not.  He NEEDS to know when and what is happening or he turns into a little turd.  If it is regarding his activities I want him to know his schedule and hell, we need to know too!

I called the Boys and Girls Club and spoke with the basketball league coordinator, turns out I only can get refunded for the basketball fee but not the full amount I paid.  Whatever, Andy now has a year membership to the Boys and Girls Club where we can drop him off to have some alone adult time for a few hours.  Finally!  The point is the shitty service we got.  Crappy text messages, no schedule of games or practices and super short notice for everything.  The coordinator attempted to apologize for the shitty, new coaches.  I told him the coaches are not new and that texting a few hours a head of time is not an appropriate way to communicate with WORKING parents (yeah I just called myself a parent).  He apologized, assured me he would speak with the coaches and issue me a refund for the basketball season.

Well I don't think he has done any of what he said he would do because we are still getting shitty-assed text messages from the coach.  I will wait a few weeks for the refund and then point him to my blog post so he can see the idiot text messaging that was/is going on.  I had even asked the coach about the jerseys and he told me it's just something they post on the notices to make sure parents attend the crappy meetings.  Oh the lies abound, Andy doesn't need to learn life skills from the club.

In other news, Andy was up at 4am doing who knows what by the dishwasher/sink.  I am a VERY light sleeper and I heard him wake up to use the bathroom.  And instead of hearing normal bathroom noises, I heard mucking about instead of going to bed noises.  I got up and found him in the kitchen, "Andy, what the hell are you doing in here in the dark?"  He was not sleep walking, I know a sleep walker when I see one (my sister used to sleepwalk).  He immediately was shocked I was out of bed and he stammered for half a minute before saying, "I heard a noise."  I told him the only noises happening were him being awake in the kitchen, in the dark.  I sent him off to bed and I went back to bed.  I think maybe he was looking for the carving knife to kill us in our sleep.  It IS possible, however probably not likely.  Poor kid won't have a chance to kill me in my sleep, I sleep far too light for sleepy murder.  He will have to stare me square in the eyes while he attempts to kill me.  Seriously though, I don't know what he was up to but I know when he lies.  And his 30 second stammering is usually an indicator that he is trying to think of a shitty lie.  And, "I heard a noise," was a shitty lie.  -_-  He also fears looking me straight in the eyes when lying to me, let's hope he is incapable of honing his lying skills.