Pelude

It’s a sport, Anthony. The kids both want to do it and I think they should be allowed to,” Mindy said quietly to her husband.

“I know what it is, Mindy. I also know what it used to be called and I can’t believe you even considered allowing it. These are our kids. Our KIDS, Mindy! I wouldn’t be able to look at Jesse the same any more, to say nothing of Eric.”

“That’s because you have a dirty mind, Tony. Pull it back out of the gutter for a second and think about how our kids could benefit from it. It’s not what you were thinking. Its mainstream now. Hell, I heard it was created by a fourteen year old girl for heaven’s sake. And the school endorses it!”

“It’s as dangerous as a gateway drug, Mindy. But it’s called a sport instead. Maybe some kid did create it but any activity that requires you to display yourself for a grade, is just asking for trouble down the road.”

“They wear a full body suit, Tony. Grown men show more skin on television when they have that body building championship you insist on watching each year. You can’t tell me the women that enter those sorts of competitions wouldn’t wear smaller bikinis if there was a way of getting away with it. Anyway, you’re focusing on just the form competition part of the sport - and not even that whole part. They DO have to be able to show grace and poise in the dance portion too.”

Tom grunted. If that ain’t just about showing off, I don’t know what is,” he proclaimed.

“It’s a form of dance, Tom,” Mindy insisted. You try doing it and you’d see real quick that it takes a lot more practice and training than simply bopping to music. Have you seen how long those contestants can high-step in formation around the track? With those shoes on? That particular competition can go on an hour before the first of them drops out. Then there’s the cart-pulling races, championship level paintball competitions, and the cross-country endurance races too. Fitness, coordination, poise, self discipline. This sport has it all, no matter how much you want to think of it as being perverted. And when they begin televising the national championships it’ll be you glued to the TV watching those little fourteen to eighteen year old girls compete.”

“They’re gonna televise the championships?” Tony asked in surprise. He hadn’t heard anything about that and he followed sports religiously.

“It was on the news today. I tell you Tony, it’s getting big now. All sorts of sponsors are stepping up with prizes and everything. But that’s level two and I totally agree that Jesse and Eric don’t need to get mixed up in that - not that there’s much to worry about there. Eric’s a slob and Jesse is boy crazy. The only thing to really consider is the cost. We both know they’ll only stick with it a month or so and for that length of time, I don’t know if you could justify the five hundred dollar signup fee. Each.”

“Fuck me sideways, Mindy!” Tony erupted. “Eric’s soccer last year only cost a hundred and a half!”

“Plus the uniform, the shoes and the fundraisers. We spent nearly a thousand on that four-week trip to nowhere.” Mindy deadpanned.

“It wasn’t Eric’s fault he sprained his thumb!” Tony argued before stopping himself and feeling a little silly. He’d previously argued that it WAS Eric’s fault for dropping out of the sport because of a sprained thumb. Especially a hands-off sport like soccer.

“Anyway, it’s not the money. We can afford it. It’s the other thing. That’s OUR thing.” Tony grumped.

“It just means you could coach better than anyone else. And we’d get half off the registration fee,” Mindy grinned, knowing exactly what their, ‘thing’ was. A ‘thing’ they had not engaged in in, in nearly a decade now. Offering her husband an opportunity to coach a team had been her ace up her sleeve. He’d been politely asked a few years earlier to resign his position as coach on the little league team for being too hard on the little kids. This sport called for hard coaches and Mindy had been approached by the school’s sports director personally.