As with any community on the face of this earth, Huntsville has its good areas, its bad areas and of course it has its highly affluent areas. In Huntsville's case the highly affluent areas tend to reside in the Monte Sano, Hampton Cove, Jones Valley, South Parkway areas of town.
And just like every community on the face of this earth, Huntsville has people who feel that they are entitled to the best of the best, who believe their children are the most wonderful, precious darlings ever conceived and that money is what counts. These people tend to live in the above mentioned areas.
Now before I get into the juice of my story, I'm sure some of you are thinking that I am getting to rant about the privileged people of my area and you are right. You are going to be thinking that I am just jealous of what these people have or the lifestyle they are able to maintain and to a certain degree you are also right. But in fact this post has to do with common decency and courtesy for your fellow man.
Budzo and Scooter had all day soccer games this past Saturday. The plan was to arrive early, set up our tent behind any crowd so we would not block anyone’s view and just make a day of it. Well, I should say that was everyone else plan; I showed up around noon. I watched the second half of Budzo's game and I noticed that Junior seemed to be silently seething. It didn't take long for me to figure out what was the cause of his ire. Apparently, just as Budzo's game was starting, several of the affluent people I have mentioned above came to watch their child/grandchild play on the opposing team. Wheedling her way into some of the shade our tent provided, an older woman, who was dressed to the nines for a child’s soccer game and smelled horribly of some expensive perfume, decided that the tent did not provide enough shade. She had situated herself slightly to Junior's left and about one half of a foot in front of him. Then she brought up the umbrella. Of course it was a golf umbrella. Of course she did not pull it down as close as possible to her own body. And of course she was completely clueless to the fact that she had now blocked Junior's view of half of the field. Instead of asking the lady to wake up and join this reality, Junior just sighed and watched the rest of the game on his feet.
We then enjoyed a two hour break as we waited for Scooter's game to start. Not to toot our own horns but whenever someone came by to ask questions about the schedule or if they could join us for a minute to get out of the sun or if we would mind watching so and so while they took child #2 to another event, we had no problem. We were all enjoying ourselves and getting to spend some time together.
Cue the warm up for Scooter's team and stupid person #1.
No sooner had we all sat back to watch the warm up, a gentleman, whose wealth was apparent, stood in front of us as he surveyed his kingdom of the soccer field sidelines. He saw all of us, made eye contact, even nodded his head, took about five steps to the right and proceeded to set up this huge summer umbrella right in front of us. I saw both my father and my brother tense. I also saw each one of them just shake their head and decide to let it go. Turns out this man wasn’t setting up the umbrella so that he, his wife and his daughter could comfortably watch their child/sibling play; instead he was setting up the umbrella so his daughter would have a place to play and the dog would have a place to nap. I watched as both the men in my family let their jaws fall when the man then went on to set up chairs for him and his wife, with their back to their daughter. Go figure.
Cue stupid person #2.
A man comes and sets up his chair and carries on several conversations with the people around him. Then he pulls out the beach umbrella and proceeds to hide himself from the sun and the field from us. This was the proverbial straw to the camel’s proverbial back.
PU #2 decides he has had enough and jumps to his feet. Hoping that he is going to handle this situation diplomaticly was fruitless of me; I mean I know my father. His back was ruffeled. He told the men that what they were doing was unacceptable. He explained that we had been there all day and had deliberately set up away from the sideline so that our tent would not block anyone’s view. He said that if they were going to use umbrellas then they should also move to the back of the sidelines so they aren’t obstructing anyones view. I’m sure you can imagine the tone that was used. Both men were stunned and stupid person #2 apologized and moved his seat. Stupid man #1 was really stupid.
As any man is apt to do, he shot his mouth off and tried to get a few quick witted sayings in….but he moved his umbrella. When we thought the worst was over, stupid man #1 turned around and said, “By the way, you are welcome”.
Parental Unit #2 was immediately on his feet, Junior was right behind him tell PU #2 that he had his back, PU #1 and myself were telling them both to let it go and TCFTBL was watching with cell phone in hand.
A few minutes later, Bean pops up.
“Can I go ask them if I can pet their dog?”
“NO!” was the reply from every adult under our tent.
*******************************************************************
Twenty minutes later
“I’m gone; tired of being hot.”
“Okay B” PU#2, replied giving me a hug. “Watch the news tonight.”
“Of course; gotta make sure I don’t have to bail all of you out of jail.”
Sometimes, my family is so white trash.
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