The Upstory

Holly had her last basketball game of the season. She was playing a team that is the talk of the league because they are aggressive and play dirty. The coach must not have gotten the memo that this is a non-competitive league that emphasizes good sportsmanship.

Anyway, it was the first game of the day and the gym was locked when we got there. Then the guy who came to unlock the gym set off the alarm and when he got that problem fixed he had another one – figuring out how to turn on the lights.

So, we’re off to a late start. And this is a considerable problem because one of the moms has us on a tight schedule. We are to come over to her house the moment the game ends. The. Very. Moment.

Our team is supposed to meet after the game for breakfast and to hand out the awards. This usually is a fun event during which the coach recaps the team effort and remembers hilarious little moments (the parents all nod along) and proud moments (the players all nudge each other) and the girls take turn signing each other’s jerseys. We’re done, the pressure’s off, we can all relax and gab a bit before we say goodbye to another season.

Originally, we were going to meet at I-HOP for pancakes, but then Mrs. Quickly decided we should come over to her house for a real breakfast. She turned down offers from other moms to make it a breakfast potluck because she said, “breakfast is easy” and of course she was right because the next words out of her mouth were “my husband will make it.”

Once she clinched the deal on being the breakfast party host, Mrs. Q switched into her other mode which was to stress out about how little time she has for the awards party. She did this last year and the year before.

One year Mrs. Quickly lobbied for the awards party to be at a park and vetoed ideas about grilling hamburgers. She didn’t have time for that. Instead we’d just have a celebration cake, and she’d bring the cake. But another mom who had more staying power and more pull, got it changed to an Italian restaurant that she owned, and turned it into a full-service, hosted lunch. With cake, of course.

This sent Mrs. Q into a tailspin. Yes, she would bring the cake, but no she wouldn’t stay for lunch because lunch would take too long.

The day of the lunch, she bustled in with the cake, but ran into a snag when her daughter decided she didn’t want to bustle out because her team was on the patio doing a karaoke sing-along. I don’t know what happened to Mrs. Q during this extended period of being in one place but the inertia probably wasn’t good for her schedule or her blood pressure.

Anyway, back to our story. So, we moms and dads are watching our girls play their last game. And the game started late, which means we’re behind schedule. Which means Mrs. Quickly is not in a good place.

She’s not sitting with Husband, because he’s home making breakfast. And she’s missing the game, and the baskets her daughter is making, because she is scurrying about, from parent to parent, instructing us about her timetable which is very tight. In fact, she can only have us in her home for the real breakfast for about 45 minutes because she has to be at her other kid’s game. (We wonder if she will tell the parents at that game that she wants to host that awards party?)

Meanwhile the game is getting nasty. The other team pushes, shoves, and throws elbows. The ref calls foul after foul. The other team’s coach argues with the ref. And so forth. Our team wins the first half of the game. Then the other team gets in three quick baskets and they lead. One of our girls shoots a three-pointer and the role-model coach drops the F-bomb. But never mind that. The game ends, the other team wins, and off we go for our quickie awards breakfast.

The food was ready when we got there (Husband is indeed a wonderful breakfast chef). We were on the clock so we dined festively and fast, got our awards, and were out the door on time, leaving Mrs. Q with a profound sense of accomplishment and relief before she raced off to meet her next deadline.