The Substitute

I've known my mother long enough to know that if I come to watch one of her sporting events - heck, if I'm in the same neighborhood as one of her sporting events - I will most likely wind up being drafted to play. (This is a general hazard of knowing people who play sports: sports teams never have enough people, so you're always being asked to play. This pressure is doubled when your mom is asking you, and trebled when you're right there on the sidelines looking on.)

But that didn't occur to me when I went out to Setters this evening to watch her play sand volleyball. I showed up showered (even moisturized!) and wearing jeans and looking generally not like someone who is expecting to play sand volleyball.

This assumption worked just fine for two games.

My mom's team won both those games. They play the third game notwithstanding - but one of the team members must have forgotten, because she booked it out of there five seconds after game two ended.

So the three remaining team members were standing around, thinking their friend was in the bathroom or something, and I saw my mom gesture toward the stands where I was sitting. Her teammate looked in my direction.

I said to my dad, "She's telling them I can play."

My dad paused for a moment, then said, "No!" I don't know why he sounded so surprised - he's been drafted into coed softball games before.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, my mom came over and said, "Hey, Kel - can you play until the other girl comes back?" So I rolled up my jeans and was three points into the game before I found out that someone had seen the regular teammate peeling out of the parking lot.

Anyway, I didn't embarrass myself, we won the game, and I did have fun. But now I have to take another shower tonight, and I can't wear these jeans to work tomorrow.

Maybe I should just start showing up to watch my mom's games already wearing the right clothing to play the sport. After the game, I found out she once made my sister play softball in a skirt. ("But it was a sweat skirt!" she said.)