it's a good thing I don't have kids...
because I could never interact with other kids' parents, in a positive way. Today was a soccer tournament day for my friends' almost-twelve-year-old (Whose voice has changed and he's now fuzzy all over! Wasn't it just yesterday we were playing trucks and he was toddling about? Oy.) Anyway, today's game was against a divisional rival and we lost 2 to 0. It was a fair loss, unlike yesterday's unfair 2 to 2 tie where the other team's goals were due to quite questionable calls.
So we lose, and I run over to the potty because I had 20oz of coffee and couldn't hold it any longer, and I'm standing in line dutifully waiting my turn. Some other woman comes over and, while we're waiting for some little kid to do their thing in the potty, starts chatting.
Person: So, do you have a son or daughter playing today?
Me: [thinking "I look like I could have had a 12yo kid? A kid at all?"] No, my friends' son plays.
Person: Oh. My son plays. We just beat our nemesis. We're undefeated now.
Me: [thinking "You think our team is your nemesis? Interesting. We don't think that about you, we just don't like your team."] Yeah, your team beat ours.
Person: Oh. Oops. We've won our last several games and the last tournament we were in. Everything is just going our way now, like when that one boy nailed that kick into the top crossbar.
Me: That was my friends' kid.
Person: Oh. Oops. [more rambling about their team, etc.]
Ok, so call me crazy, but wouldn't you have
just stopped talking at the point where I said "Yeah, your team beat ours," or at least stopped talking about your team or maybe—if you wanted to keep chatting for whatever reason—started talking about something
else? I mean seriously, if the situations were reversed (and I was a line-chatter, which I'm not) I'd never start randomly talking about how my son's team just won and blah blah blah.
I don't really know what I would have done if the woman had actually said something negative about our team, or a specific player, or—god forbid—my friends' kid or one of his really good buddies/kids I actually know.
