Apparently, I've made enemies. My first enemies in 11 years. Now, when I look in a darkened corner, I see red eyes glaring back at me. Every walk to the car is fraught with danger - because I don't know if the car will be there. Or if the tires will be intact. It's a scary, exhilerating feeling, knowing the wolves are at the door and the barbarians are at the gate.
What caused this, you ask? Well, my friends . . . it's that dangerous game known as kickball, and how I'm too damn nice for my own good.
Looking back, I think I can best describe my leadership style as "trying to keep everyone happy". Well, you know what happens when you do that - no one is happy. On top of that, I'm a pretty competitive person. Usually, I direct it inward, but as the seasons went on and we kept losing, I became more and more frustrated.
My frustration wasn't helped by the fact that we were two teams -- one team that wanted to drink like fish and just have fun out there and one that wanted to have fun but at least be competitive. All of my close friends on the team belonged to the latter group, so guess who wound up with more of the playing time. And this started the sniping, along with more frustration.
And when something isn't fun anymore, it's time to stop - especially when it's a kids game.
So the plan was simple: I step down, Cathy takes over the team, and I talk to the "fun-lovers" - Alex, Katy and Wendy, suggesting they form their own team where they can have fun, and we walk away happy. Then Jones stepped in to help. And help he did. Now they're forming their own team and they think I'm a prick.
I'm not blaming Jones. He was just trying to help and the situation grew out of his control. I blame myself and them for this stupidity. And hopefully, some of these rifts will be healed someday, because this is a lot of stupid nonsense.
But if we play them this season, and they start winning the game, I'm going to tell everyone on the team to kick the ball to Wendy - she can't catch.
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