Just then, the girls’ practice officially starts and the unmistakable chanted cadence of competitive cheerleading comes pouring out of these little girls. Accompanied, of course, by the synchronized V’s and X’s that come from little arms pointing and crossing in the air.
Yikes.
It’s all I can do to not throw up in my mouth. But then the coaching begins…
“WHAT ARE YOU DOO-EENG???”
“YOUS ARE DO-EENG IT ALL WRONG!!!!!”
“NO!!!”
“DAT’S WRONG!!!”
“STOP EET, MALEESA!!! YOU ARE ALL WRONG!!!!”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOO-EENG???”
I must have heard “WHAT ARE YOU DOO-EENG???” screamed at these little girls 60 times in ten minutes. This lady’s voice is seared in my brain… “WHAT ARE YOU DOO-ENG???”
I wish I didn’t, but I took a little closer look at who was doing all this yelling. It was a Hispanic lady who by all possible indications was attempting to look like the apple in the Fruit-Of-The-Loom underwear ads. I am very confident that her circumference was a significant number of inches greater than her height. And she was wearing a “form fitting” bright red sweater. If you were asked to guess her occupation or hobbies, “cheerleading coach” would probably come to your mind just after Alpine Skiing and just before Swimsuit Modeling.
This butterball was just screaming at these poor little girls “WHAT ARE YOU DOO-ENG???” time and time again and with no sense of direction or hints on how to do it better. After about 15 minutes, all the girls were walking around with their shoulders slumped over, their little heads pointed straight at the ground, and had a collective look like they had been emotionally steamrolled. It was all I could do not to go down there and roll that 400 pound muffin out of the way and gather up the girls and take them to a psychiatrist.
So instead of enduring any more of this torture, I went to the gym to set up for the presentation. Doors locked. No one in sight. It’s about 9:40am for the 10am start.
I find a worker and get him to open the place up. No chairs, no tables, no screen. I find the guy again and ask him if there is supposed to be a clinic here and he shows me a stack of flyers advertising the clinic. Someone should be here. So I set up and wait…. By 10am, two or three coaches come by and ask if this is the place for the coaches clinic. I tell them I think so….
By 10:10am there is still no one there and the janitor comes in and says there is a guy outside who wants to talk to me. He’s apparently the organizer of the event and he asks if anyone told me that the meeting was moved to the Adult Center one block down the street………….
My gut reaction is to say – “Yeah, I knew that, but I wanted to do it in this abandoned room with no tables or chairs and where no one knew I was there…” But I told him I didn’t get the message.
So I packed up my stuff and walked down the street. By 10:25am I am starting the presentation in a well-appointed room in front of about 35 coaches. The presentation goes fine and there is a good vibe throughout despite an obvious animus at the beginning due to the late start. At the end, a number of coaches expressed their appreciation and all turned out well.
All’s well that end’s well, I suppose, but the fact that no one told me about the change in location made me what to scream “WHAT ARE YOU DOO-ENG?????”
