I never thought that I would end up as a soccer Mom: not only do I have a hatred of driving that borders on the pathological (hence, no minivan), I also am incapable of providing anyone–let alone my children–with a pair of matching socks, something which, in the soccer world they seem to be particularly insistent upon; not only do they want matching socks, but matching soccer socks to boot. (Personally, I consider any day that my kids show up for school and/or day care with their feet encased in something other than duct tape and brown paper bags to be a roaring success.) However, mini-vans and matching socks notwithstanding; the truth is that once my kids got old enough to make the request, we, too, joined the hordes at the local soccer field. Which is where I first realized that the thing I should really have been worrying about all along was not the socks, but the snacks.
It wasn’t long after Clementine first started playing that I discovered Micro Soccer’s dirty little secret: the whole thing is actually a front set up by the juice box and cereal bar companies to move more product. It’s true, and although I’ve never actually seen the head of Micro driving around in a new car courtesy of Capri-Sun, such a sight wouldn’t surprise me in the least, just like it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that the entire Micro Soccer staff had just returned from an all-expenses paid junket “touring” the granola bar producing regions of southern France.
Luckily, with Clementine, we were able to get off the wheel of snack destiny by promising her that if she quit Micro we would buy her all the juice boxes she could ever drink, and then using our parental perquisites to renege on the deal. (Oh, come on–it’s not like she was enjoying it: she spent every game rolling around on the sidelines crying at the mere thought of having to touch the ball–until snack time, that is, when she would be magically revived). With her little brother Clyde, however, this is no longer an option: he actually likes to play.
Not that that precludes him from thinking constantly about the snacks, a trait he seems to share with every other member of his team: during an average thirty minute game the parent who has brought snack may have to hear “What’s for snack?” at least 130 million times before the end. In fact, the last time I was the “Snack Mom” I finally snapped and began responding with: “Pickled pig’s feet and Clamato, alright?” Unfortunately, very few five-year-olds have spent enough time in seedy bars to fully grasp the true horror of what I was saying, and so continued to pester me about their “pig snack”.
Clearly, though, the other Moms had (spent enough time in seedy bars), and no doubt began to wonder whether or not I was seriously going to poison their children. This gave me a great idea: what would happen if you brought a snack so horrible that no one would eat it? Would you be released from bringing snack for life, or would your turn repeat over and over again until you “got it right”? (Kind of like the Buddhist idea of returning over and over again to the wheel of suffering until you have learned life’s lessons).
And even assuming that banishment really was an option, how bad would the snack have to be? Although I have heard of teams that have forbidden a mother from bringing snack after she brought organic apple slices instead of Cheetos, I have a feeling that the mothers on Clyde’s team wouldn’t give me a pass for anything short of Skoal Bandits and double short shot macchiatos.
And I’ve heard that nothing will get tobacco stains out of a pair of soccer socks.