Parrothead Ramblings

The ultimate goal of soccer: Ice-cold Bug Juice and a hug from Daddy.

Grandkids are so cool they are off the chart of coolness. My grand-parakeet, hereinafter known as "Lady Bug," is a constant source of amusement for me. She'll be five soon, and is kept pretty busy by her parents with such things as pre-school, dance, and (gasp) soccer. She's had two games so far, and her team is 2-0. I think. It's actually kind of hard to tell who wins these games, and the kids don't seem to care much what the score was, anyway.

This Crime Dog has zero grasp of the game of soccer. When I was growing up, it was something played by "damn furriners." Oh, our P.E. teacher in junior high school would lob a soccer ball out on the field once in a while, and tell us to go at it. Then he'd read the sports page while we kicked around the ball, "pantsed" one another, and generally played that brand of grab-ass so prevalent with early teen boys.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Some U.S. women won something called an "Earth Cup" or some shit a couple years back, thus rocketing sports bra stock to the pinnacle of the NASDAQ. La-dee-freakin'-da. It still sucks. You watch a bunch of dudes with names you can't pronounce chase after a ball for three hours, and the score is 0-0.

Not so with the parakeet brand of soccer. It's a bit more entertaining. So, to better appreciate the game in which my lineage is participating, I decided I would watch carefully and see what I could learn. As near as I can tell from watching the past few weeks, here are the rules of "Parakeet Soccer":

1) Both teams must wear virtually identical uniforms, so as to make it nearly impossible to tell who's who out there. In my case, I just watch for Lady Bug's bouncing pony tail.

2) There is one really fast kid on each team. It's that kid's job to kick the shit out of the ball, then run after it in a foot race with the other team's fast kid.

3) Each team has an "enforcer." Ours is this tall blonde kid. It's his job to get pissed and face plant at least one player - maybe even a teammate - at some point in the contest. Wait a minute..... Now that I think about it, the other teams we've played haven't actually had an enforcer. I guess that tall blonde kid is just mean.

4) It's the job of the remaining seven or eight players (the actual number seems to change regularly) to form into a big pack with the other team's kids, chase after the fast guys, and avoid contact with either the soccer ball or that big blonde kid.

5)The objective of the contest is to see how far you can kick the soccer ball. To achieve the maximum distance, it is important that you miss the goal by no less than twenty feet.

6) Given Rule 5 above, there really is no need for a goalie. If your opponent gets close to the net, you just pile everybody up in front of it in case the ball get accidentally tipped in that direction.

7) The international requirement that the player scoring a goal must rip off his/her shirt and run around like an idiot while being chased by his/her teammates has been waived. It seems the shirts hang down to their ankles, so they need a Mom just to get the things off.

8) Each team must provide on game day at least one obnoxious dumbass of a parent who takes this soccer shit way too seriously.

9) Each game must be carefully recorded with both still and video photography. This is so important that about twelve people per game seem have this assignment.

10) There doesn't seem to be a clock, so the game ends when all the kids pile up on the sideline in front of a cooler full of cookies and soft drinks. This could happen a couple of times during the game, but it only counts when a parent actually opens the cooler. Otherwise, it's just wishful thinking on the players' parts, and their coach sends them back out to chase the fast kids some more.

There, I think that just about does it. Those might not be the international rules, but as near as I can make out, that's the way it's played by 4-5 year olds in Arizona. At some point in the near future, I'm going to have to get Lady Bug pointed in the right direction: softball. She's a southpaw, and I'm going to teach her to pitch a mean fastball that runs inside on right-handers. Then she'll be the enforcer.
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