Posted on
08 July 2010, under
Fatherhood; More Fatherhood articles...
Beat it at your peril!
It’s that time of year again, time for the event that should bring out all the best in us. Our pride, our happiness, our sense of fun and our love of fair play. I am of course talking about the School Sports Day. I had a feeling you wouldn’t recognise my description of it, they rarely live up to their billing. Like a new Stephen Segal film you watch because you remember that good one he did in the eighties, the annual Sports Day will also bring you crashing down to earth with a frown.
An afternoon full of unimagined, unexpected and unfrickinbelievable pitfalls, it’s tough enough for a hardened veteran to avoid the kid landmines, let alone a newbie. I feel it is my obligation, nay, my duty, to somehow put together a series of tips, some words of advice, and if all else fails a friendly pat on the back. Believe me, no matter how bad you mucked up, no matter how many kids you trod on, one of us out there has done worse. Unless like me, you ran through the finishing line of the egg and spoon race, straight into a netball post, which then promptly toppled over onto a class of five year olds, then maybe not worse.
I had actually begun that particular Sports Day with a spring in my step. I had remembered to dress Kaede in her PE kit, a rookie error I made the previous year, and the sun was shining. I was fairly confident about my chances in the 3-legged race, especially as my Nan had died that year and had left me her false leg in her Will. I had spare batteries for my camera, and had actually remembered to bring the camera as well (last year really was a bad one).
In most schools all real competition has been banned anyway, shouting and screaming is frowned upon, as are huge ‘GO KAEDE GO’ banners that took me a week to paint. Polite clapping and the cheering of the opposition is encouraged, so try to find out the children’s names of the people you are sitting next to. Ginger, Limpsalot and Pigtails are not acceptable substitutes for real names.
All politeness, social etiquette and fair play go out of the window when it comes to the Parents races though. I have seen Yummy Mummies bringing their own 100% Egyptian cotton Chanel beach pillow cases to use in the sack race, the dignified approach to one-upmanship. I know of another Dad who carries a Swiss Army Knife in his sock, and then uses it to cut holes in his sack for his feet to poke through. He can finish the 60m sack race in 10.1 seconds.
The blue ribbon event is obviously the Dad’s Playground Sprint though. It’s always the last one of the meet, and the one that can cause the most grief.
There are some Cardinal rules to the Dads race, ignore them at your peril. Follow them and you may just come out of this day with some dignity still left.
Don’t win. You will look like an over-achiever, and whoever is taking the pictures on the finishing line will have the perfect shot of your gurning-crossing-the finish-line face. This will then be passed around by the wives of all the sore losers, only for your wife to stumble across a copy of it (with some witty caption like ‘Face Transplant Fails’) at the next PTA meeting.
Don’t come second. You will look like a failed over-achiever and your Wife will be furious that you took it so seriously and still lost. You will receive the look of smug from the winner, and the commiserating smack on the back that actually hurts, as you make your excuses about not hearing the starting whistle.
Don’t come last. Actually there is an important codicil to this one. You can come last if it’s because somebody tripped you over and your grazed knee is actually pouring with blood. In fact, if you can arrange it to fall over in such a way that it doesn’t look like fell over your own fat feet, then you are golden. That Mum that you talk to on a regular basis in a borderline flirtatious way, will be the first one to your aid. The quick accidental cleavage flash you get will be well worth a scraped knee, or even better a twisted ankle that also gets you out of the hoovering for a few days. This is a triple salco manoeuvre with a 4.5 difficulty rating though, not to be attempted by amateurs or the faint of heart.
Other than that, mid-pack is where you want to finish. Make sure you’re not wearing trainers, it will look like you’re trying, which you are. Also try not to trip anyone over, the last thing you want to see as you are walking back from the finish line, is your Wife helping up your poor victim.
Most important though is to enjoy the day, take too many pictures, and have enough change in your pocket to buy ice-creams on the way home. After all, you can cheer up now, it’s a whole year until the next one.
Jamie Harding is a Freelance Writer, Blogger and Stay-At-Home-Dad. An ex-publican, he has swapped listening to everybody else’s problems to dealing with his own, named Storm, Kaede and Nate. He has been known to use humour to hide the glaring gaps in his knowledge. Currently in his third year of house-husbandry, and is surviving every minute.
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