Take a Deep Breath

“I don't know why Cletus drug your tired old bones in here, he musta owed you somethin' fierce. Fact is, mister, you start screwin' up this team, I'll personally hide-strap your ass to a pine rail and send you up the Monon Line!”

To borrow a saying my dear friend Cathy used and vary it a little: McDonald’s wine list is longer than the amount of sh*t that gets me worked up enough to yell.

I’d shout if my children were about to dash into oncoming traffic. Once or twice they have bickered away my last nerve, which warrants a raised voice. If anyone, loved or otherwise, were driving over a small animal, I’d risk a strained vocal cord. My cousin almost voted for Bush and I shouted, “You’re gonna get screwed!” Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Yet I’ve never screamed at someone to get his head out of his ass because the team is depending on him. You’ll never see me on the sidelines, sweating profusely while yelling, “INTENSITY!” I’ve never grabbed a kid’s jersey and hollered so loud blood began to flow from my eyeballs.

I guess that means I could never be a high school coach.

Last night I took my children to cheer on my school’s basketball team. Within ten minutes, I almost approached our coach with chamomile tea and a soft pillow. That guy needs to relax – he’s one foul shot away from heart failure. Many of the parents were no better – screaming at him from the stands to “focus”.

Is everyone bananas? They should be charged with inciting a coronary.

If you read about a local coach treated for a blown brain cell – well, you heard it here first. And over a game.

It is a game. Isn’t it?