Tuesday
4/17/04
Little League. Bah.
It occurs to me occasionally that there’s no shortage of great things about being an adult. Some are small things, like the absence of people in your life who can require you to recite multiplication tables, and some are larger, like having the option of taking long hot showers in your very own bathroom without having certain people banging on the door telling you to "stop wasting water and steaming up the bathroom." (Hi Mom!)
But one of my favorite things about being an adult is that I no longer have to pretend to like things just because I’m supposed to. When I was nine or ten at a Masonic picnic I really wanted ketchup on my hot dog, but settled for mustard after getting the "Eeewws" and funny looks. Nowadays it’s ketchup on everything, baby. Likewise, when I made it to my twenties I realized that I no longer had to go stand around in dance clubs with my dorky friends and pay $6 for a Bud Light just so I could be invisible to girls.
And this season's realization: our oldest decided he wanted to play baseball this year... but I don’t like Little League. I don’t like anything about it. Not the time spent driving back and forth to practice, not watching practice, not getting up at 6:30 so we can make it to the opening day "parade", and certainly not sitting in the sun on an aluminum bleacher for an hour and a half watching little kids whiff balls.
I know little league is a big thing and everyone seems all pumped up about it, but the whole enterprise strikes me as little more than an exercise in tedium. It’s pretty much little kids wiggling around on a bench while some other little kids are out in the field staring at the sky or digging in the dirt. Which means, of course, that it’s really all about the parents; parents for whom the whole thing is an intense social occupation as much as an athletic thing.
Now none of this is to say that I have anything against kids and sports; our oldest plays soccer and both the lads are in karate, both of which are activities that involve actual exercise and running around... all the while lacking that weird parental "must win" vibe.
Then again, maybe I’m just a weenie. But no... this is all about me being a grownup and getting to choose my likes and dislikes. And you know what? As long as I’m at it, I don’t like The Apprentice or Friends either.
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Little League. Bah.
It occurs to me occasionally that there’s no shortage of great things about being an adult. Some are small things, like the absence of people in your life who can require you to recite multiplication tables, and some are larger, like having the option of taking long hot showers in your very own bathroom without having certain people banging on the door telling you to "stop wasting water and steaming up the bathroom." (Hi Mom!)
But one of my favorite things about being an adult is that I no longer have to pretend to like things just because I’m supposed to. When I was nine or ten at a Masonic picnic I really wanted ketchup on my hot dog, but settled for mustard after getting the "Eeewws" and funny looks. Nowadays it’s ketchup on everything, baby. Likewise, when I made it to my twenties I realized that I no longer had to go stand around in dance clubs with my dorky friends and pay $6 for a Bud Light just so I could be invisible to girls.
And this season's realization: our oldest decided he wanted to play baseball this year... but I don’t like Little League. I don’t like anything about it. Not the time spent driving back and forth to practice, not watching practice, not getting up at 6:30 so we can make it to the opening day "parade", and certainly not sitting in the sun on an aluminum bleacher for an hour and a half watching little kids whiff balls.
I know little league is a big thing and everyone seems all pumped up about it, but the whole enterprise strikes me as little more than an exercise in tedium. It’s pretty much little kids wiggling around on a bench while some other little kids are out in the field staring at the sky or digging in the dirt. Which means, of course, that it’s really all about the parents; parents for whom the whole thing is an intense social occupation as much as an athletic thing.
Now none of this is to say that I have anything against kids and sports; our oldest plays soccer and both the lads are in karate, both of which are activities that involve actual exercise and running around... all the while lacking that weird parental "must win" vibe.
Then again, maybe I’m just a weenie. But no... this is all about me being a grownup and getting to choose my likes and dislikes. And you know what? As long as I’m at it, I don’t like The Apprentice or Friends either.
