Time Flies

I just noticed I haven't put anything up here for a good week. I've meant too, but then I realize it's after midnight and I need to go to bed since I can't get away with wandering into work at 11 am anymore. Which is kind of too bad.

Anyhoo, the last week has been a bit hectic. You get your taxes done on time? I still need to mail them today, but I finished them off a day ago. Let's hear it for a $40 federal refund!! Woooooo!!! That's a couple of CDs right there. Maybe half a tank of gas!

And of course, Little League started. And it wouldn't be Little League without the Limpy family turning things into one colossal Mongolian Clusterfuck. Which we did. As you may recall, a couple of years ago the Little League Powers, told my son that, despite the fact that we signed up late, he was on a team. Then two days later changed their minds and said he couldn't play. Which led to me making some phone calls that could charitably be described as unpleasant in nature. Surprisingly, no restraining order resulted, and this year, finding themselves in a pinch, we got a phone call asking if I could step into a sudden breach and manage a team of 9-11 year olds. Which should give you a good idea of how desperate they were for a manager. "Call that guy nicknamed "Limpy", you know, the one who called us a 'group of prize-winning assholes' a couple years back."

Well, I'm a bigger man than that, in more ways than one. What? I've been eating a lot of potato chips lately.
If you believe nothing else I've ever written here, well a), you're probably not far off, but b) take my word for it and get your hands on some Kettle Organic BBQ chips. It's the next best thing to an orgasm in a bag.

I don't know what that means either.

As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, I agreed to manage the little tots, more than likely to a last place finish, teaching them nothing along the way other than a first-rate education as to what vulgarities to use in a given adverse baseball situation. Which is not the most useless thing you can learn. Then I asked who was on the team and they read down the list of kids and it became apparent that there was no way I could manage this team, and more importantly, no way my son could play on it. I can't even go into the reasons why, suffice it to say it had nothing to do with the coaches or the kids, and we're not the kind of parents that worry about our kid playing on a crappy team. And when I explained the situation to the league president, she agreed.

So we had to work a trade. Of 9-11 year olds. A trade. How fucked up is that? Naturally, the other managers, having already started calling their kids, were, according to the president, reluctant to make a trade. So, with her permission, after waiting a week, I called a friend of mine who's managing a team, told him about as much as I could about what was going on, and within 24 hours a 4 player trade had been worked out and my kid was off the first team and on my friend's team, along with another kid, and two kids were sent the other way. I'm not sure if any draft picks were exchanged, or if there are any players to be named later. Maybe we'll throw in a good bat.

Problem solved right?

Wrong.

One of the kids sent from my friend's team to the other team? His parents were the team sponsors. We found this out at the first practice yesterday. I felt pretty bad about that, although apparently he got traded because he was older and it balanced out the ages on the rosters. My wife felt horrible about it and was telling one of her friends about it. Her friend starts laughing her ass off and then stops and says "Oh, were you really upset about this? Because I can wait to start laughing until after we hang up."

So now it looks like, rather than managing a team I'll wind up sponsoring a team, since I'm certainly not about to screw over the other parents. This wasn't their fault, and I know if I put up a couple of hundred dollars to sponsor a team and then my kid got traded off of it before the season started, I'd be thinking about issuing a "stop-payment" on the check.

In other news, I found a new career for Syd. Here's a hint, it involves rubbing this.

One other thing. Natalie Wood is probably about to rise from her watery grave, and no doubt come after me for some of the cracks I've made about her and pools, (even though I know she drowned after falling off a boat and not in a pool), because I won the company NCAA tournament pool this year, coming into an incredible windfall of $65, (between that and the tax refund my ass is retiring!), and therefore I am today buying lunch for the office, leaving it up to the staff to decide from where. They've been trying to figure this out for the last hour. I've put less effort into some of my court arguments, (which would probably explain the results), than they're going through out there. At this rate I'll be buying dinner. Tomorrow.