Elitism enabling Obesity
Fig Jam
Our weekly game of outdoor basketball was interrupted last night, and I am not happy about it. It happened at St. Anne’s school on Queen Anne, where we regularly assemble to get some exercise and play a little hoops. We do this when the weather gets nice enough in the spring until it is terrible in the fall. Generally it is a delightful experience and everyone has a good time.
Anyhow, as we were playing last night an inordinate number of cars began arriving in the parking lot surrounding the court. Apparently there was some form of school related activity set on for the evening. About the time that the lot was about 1/2 full, an older guy, maybe 50ish, walked towards us, actually out onto the court, signalling for a timeout.
This was unsettling as we are not accustomed to having timeouts during our pickup basketball games, much less by some idiot who fancies himself a little more important than the rest of us and has the balls to walk out onto the court where 6 guys are playing hoops.
Anyways, once the afore mentioned timeout had been initiated, this guy (we’ll call him douchebag for lack of a better term) said something to Manny Faces about why there were cars arriving and told us, point blank, that the basketball court was going to be a parking lot from that point forward. The quote that I remember was, “Parking comes first. Are we clear on that?” Mr. Echelon questioned whether or not we were at a private school, and upon learning that we were, noted, “oh, so that’s where the sense of entitlement comes from.”
So yeah. We had to go to a different basketball court to play hoops because douchebag appropriated a basketball court, that was in use, so it could be a parking lot. I suppose that we could have been jerk-offs about it as well and refused to leave or whatever, but that would have just given Douchebag a chance to become even more self important and organize some form of parent resistance committee and involve the police, etc. I’m sure Douchebag was hailed as a hero inside the school as it was, and was congratulated by numerous overweight women. So, my congratulations to douchebag as well. He foiled some exercise and enabled a few more carloads of people to avoid an extra 50 yards of walking. Nice work.
I have also learned, per Mr. Faces, that once school is adjourned for the summer that St. Anne’s will take down the rims on their hoops so that nobody can use them all summer. Let’s give them a round of applause as well. That’s a pretty awesome attitude. No wonder the obesity rate in this country is climbing.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Remember - parking comes first at St. Anne’s school. Not the kids or the teachers or anything of that frivolous nature.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Factoid: Beef’s grandfather attended St. Anne’s for eight years (circa 1931-1939), then went on to public school, and shortly thereafter left the church. Must have had a similar experience.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:40 am
[...] Jam of Hot Dog & Friends vents after his regular pickup game got interrupted by people who wanted to park on the [...]
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Why did no one capture this moment on video?
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I think the D-bag may have been using some sort of Jedi Mind Trick because at the time I couldn’t think of a single argument for why we didn’t have to leave.
May 27th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
You should have flipped it and said, “we need the rest of this blacktop right away so you’re going to have to get all these cars and move them out. right away. are we clear on that?”