Vacatiooonn!
When we were younger, our family went on those annual Vaction-like vacations. You know, the two week road trips across the western United States. We would stick my parents, my four brothers and sisters into our oversized van and embark on an adventure that would almost certainly cost my parents most of their money and all of their sanity.
As you can imagine, with a family like mine, we had to fight for attention. My brother just younger than me was the absolute middle child, so of course, he acted out the most of all of us. In fact, I was smart enough to use his as a human trouble shield, and let him screw up and get in trouble, while I silenty mastermined my way into getting away with stuff.
On this particular trip, we arrived at a campground site, and my brother was stirring up trouble once again. My father was tired of trying to punish him in other ways, so he came up with a new punishment called Stand in My Shadow. It was simple. My brother couldn’t bug the rest of us if he was standing my behind my father, following him where ever he went. It was simple, brilliant and of course, didn’t last, because my brother just bugged him instead.
Shadooowww!
We still joke about that to this day, and have even thought about doing it to my son.
This Saturday, I got my chance. I was sitting there, bitterly taking pictures of my son during his warm up practices, when the referees were looking for someone to voluteer to do the chains and the down box thing. You know, the guy that changes from 1st down to second down, etc.
I had never done it, and I wasn’t going to start that day. Except one thing. My wife is really good at getting me to volunteer to do things. So she kept pushing me to go, and all of a sudden, I’m standing there asking if I can help. They give me one of those flourescent jerseys, hand me the pole and say, “Here you go!”
I’m standing there going, umm, what am I supposed to do with this? The sideline ref happily volunteers to micromanage me with all kinds of instructions. Follow me here, change the number there. As I followed his instructions, I remembered back to the vacation we were on as kids. My dad was the referee barking out instructions to my brother.
I was that guy in the middle, but hiding behind the shadow.
He said to me, “Stand right behind me, one yard and hold up the number I yell out.” So I was literally standing in this guys shadow the entire game. I felt like I was being punished.
This was not fair! I wasn’t bugging my sister, I wasn’t yelling at the refs, or even taking snacks. I was paying for this kid to play football, and now I’m being micromanaged on a hot, muggy Saturday. Normally, employers have to pay good money to micromanage people, but not me. I have to pay for the privilege.
ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH
Bitter Standing in Shadow Ben
Ben's Bitter Blog 2 