Tuesday, May 15, 2012

The Lament of the Soccer Mom

It is Mother's Day
Sunny, 80 degrees
Humidity, low
The teams take the field
One red, one blue

When last we met
they decimated our girls, those reds
6-0
and left a crying goalie
to drown her sorrows in a McFlurry
(snack-size, of course)

Two weeks later
Our girls are ready
They have worked on their game
All kinds of defensive and offensive tactics
of which I understand nothing
(especially off sides,
which makes as much sense to me as the electoral college)

We start out strong
with a goal
(though off sides, apparently)
But the ref
she did not call it
Funny how no one points out a bad call when it favors them

With the red team
there is a man
who sounds like Louis Armstrong,
if Louis Armstrong were irate
and overly invested in
a U9 girls travel soccer game
(and also, if he were still alive)

He yells
And he screams
I fear he may have a heart attack
But to no avail
Our girls prevail
1-0

Our team runs through a tunnel of cheering parents
The reds leave, dejected
a consolation of home-baked cookies in their hands
For the long drive back to Suffern



Advance praise for "The Lament of the Soccer Mom"!

"What The Canterbury Tales would have sounded like if it had a Soccer Mom among its pilgrimagers." Mike Flaherty

3 comments:

  1. I like that it's a lament even though your team won.

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    Replies
    1. Lamentation comes so naturally to me, I even lament when you're supposed to celebrate.

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  2. Nice piece of writing! But I don't even want to think of the "Canterbury Tales" with a soccer mom among the pilgrims ;)

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