Flop

I was watching the Suns play the Spurs the other day, and I couldn’t help but start to think about the “art of the flop.” (Yeah, I’m talking about you, Ginobli.) More specifically, the art of the kid flop.

It starts when they are just beginning to walk–as surely as NBA players know which refs will let them get away with a flop, kids know which parent is the most likely to run over and comfort them when they hit the ground. You can watch the same kid fall down two times in a row, and their reaction will be totally different both times: suddenly the same kid that swooned over a paper cut when their mom was there is capable of stoically walking three blocks spouting arterial blood when she’s not around.

Another similarity is that–just like with NBA flops–with “kid flops,” the more history the players have together, the worse it gets. This is especially true of the “sibling flop,” which is a very specific type of flop that only occurs between siblings with a history of battery (which, I suppose, means all of them). The sibling flop is what occurs when you are in the kitchen and hear a loud thump coming from the living room, followed by the (quickest-witted) child screaming “Ow (insert sibling name here)! Why’d ya hit me?” (It’s funny how kids who mumble into their shoes every time you ask them a question have no problem projecting their voices to the cheap seats when there is some transgression to be reported.)

Whenever I hear “why’d ya hit me, (your name here)?” I know that there are three possible scenarios:

1.Neither child was within five feet of the other one when the supposed assault took place; some clever child is just capitalizing on a random thumping sound.

2.The complaining child has launched a pre-emptive whack on the accused child, knowing that any retaliation will just be seen as further evidence of the original alleged transgression.

3.Everything happened exactly as it was reported: the first child was sitting quietly in the corner, serenely contemplating world peace, when the second child swarmed up and viciously attacked them for no good reason.

Ok, you’re right: scratch that last one. There are actually only two possible scenarios–both of which involve flopping.

Of course, the important thing to remember with “kid flopping” is that, unlike the NBA, there is no such thing as “home court advantage”; whereas during a basketball game the crowd will always be on the side of the home team when it comes to flopping (as far as I’m concerned, Steve Nash has taken nothing but charges ever since he left Dallas), when it comes to children the assumption is the exact opposite: parents always assume that the visiting team (child) was the victim of their own child’s aggression. It’s one of those “the devil you know” type situations.

Is this fair? No, but then again, neither is my having to assume the de facto role of “peacekeeper” between all people under five feet tall in my house.

There’s talk in the NBA about possibly instituting a rule against blatant flopping. While part of me thinks that this would be a great idea (yeah, I’m talking about you again, Ginobli), another part of me recognizes that, until referees are given the same sweeping, all-encompassing powers that mothers have (a mother’s power to accuse, convict, and sentence makes the military tribunals at Guantanamo look like The People’s Court), this will just open up the system to even more accusations of abuse.

Especially when the refs starts defending their calls with a very Mom-like “because I said so.” Oh wait–they already do that.

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