In a suburb called Needville, somewhere in the United States, this small city was notable for having a sizeable number of upper middle class, hard-working people, and, in some parts of Needville, there were even rich people. Yet, a majority of the other people in this city were less prosperous (and most as hard or more hard working then the more fortunate). This included Gloria and Calvin Grapple. The Grapples have two teenagers, a boy and girl. The boy chose to be in football during high school, enjoyed some middling success and was now in college.
Cindy Grapple was in soccer and cheerleading when she was in middle school. Her parents believed that, if she became a cheerleader starting her freshman year at Needville High School, it would be similar to their experiences when she was a middle school cheerleader. They figured that it would be noticeably more challenging than cheerleading before. Since Cindy was going to a public high school, certainly the school would help fund the cheerleading squad. At worst, they would spend a three-figure sum, definitely not more.
When the first cheerleading meeting occurred, Calvin and Cindy went to the meeting. Ms. Shrill the coach, the spokesman and indisputable leader of the Needville High School CHEERLEADERS began to speak. Rumor had it that she was a distant cousin to Peter Gabriel; the artist who Calvin loved. The resemblance was literally in her eyes (just like his famous song!). At the meeting, a little girl about 2 years shrieked, cried, squawked and verbalized during the entire meeting. Even worse, although Ms. Shrill emailed parents telling them the meeting was an hour long, the meeting was an hour and forty minutes long. Calvin also noticed that Ms. Shrill's daughters, who were assistant coaches to the cheerleaders, talked louder-than-quietly while Ms. Shrill consistently ignored them. "Wait a minute," Calvin thought, "if those two were her daughters, wouldn't it seem logical that her daughters and very important assistant coaches to the squad would give their mother their undivided attention?!?" Definitely not, as he witnessed the little girl crying and squawking, and her daughters talking for all attendees to hear and witness.
To Calvin's horror, Ms. Shrill passed out to all attending parents 7 pages of paper filled with information, events and demands. To Calvin's shock, he read one of the astonishing pages and then heard Ms. Shrill talk about the very same horrifying set of facts!! Calvin and his wife were absolutely deluded thinking that cheerleading might cost $200, or maybe even some figure approaching $500. No, it would not cost $500. No, it would not cost $700 or $800! First, it would cost over $1,000, and Ms. Shrill demanded this sum in $155 installments each and every month. Second, there was a cheerleading raffle costing another $150. Then, there was camp that would cost an additional amount. Later, he learned of more and more giving that parents MUST DO!
Unfortunately, Calvin was unemployed. He saw these monetary amounts and panicked. He started to breathe faster, but he couldn't breathe too fast or too loud, because his daughter would look at him in unsympathetic disgust and elbow him. Cindy would order her hapless father to stop at once. He was embarrassing her! That's what he knew what would happen, and he frantically kept his cool amid an increasingly louder two year old, gabby assistant coaches and an increasingly didactic Ms. Shrill.
"How could this happen!" Calvin wondered. "How could I pay a total of $684 for his son, Arthur's extracurricular activities? That included EVERYTHING HE WAS IN FOR 8 DAMN YEARS!!! It included when he was in community football (ages 9-13); that included him being in football and basketball for four years, that included his participation for two years in the school plays!!! How and why is this happening? This cannot be happening!!" Then he thought of the line in Tori Amos' song "Cornflake Girl"......"this cannot, this cannot, this cannot be happening to meeeee. You bet your life it is! YOU BET YOUR LIFE IT IS!!!" Calvin overlooked the fact that what Tori Amos described in that song was much worse than being woefully overcharged for an activity whose costs outstripped its benefits by a country mile.
Calvin felt increasingly worse during those long 100 minutes of a baleful meeting. His shock and anxiety grew into stomach pain and dizziness. He feebly wrote not one, but three checks payable to Needville High School Cheerleading. He told Cindy in no uncertain terms to get out of the high school at once because the pharmacy would close in a few minutes. He would have to race over there to feel better.....somehow, some way.
Calvin and his wife violated a basic law of life: look before you leap. They didn't know THE COST before the meeting. No one told them. They realized that one thing was impossible to tell their strong-willed, successful, stubborn, audacious daughter. They could never tell their daughter, "Cindy, now that we know the facts, you will have to quit cheerleading before it starts." They both realized that there were many things right that they did as parents of Cindy. Cindy was smarter, more confident and more accomplished than her father was at 14. Cindy also never, ever worked as hard as Calvin did on his father's farm when he was a kid. Sadly enough, Calvin lamented the fact that Gloria and him said "no" to Cindy too few times. Calvin recalled what his wise and successful father told him forty years earlier, "The more a kid gets, the more a kid demands."
Calvin was unemployed. How would Gloria and him afford all their expenses when they weren't making ends meet now? Sometimes, Calvin felt like he was the only one to remember the shameful, humiliating bankruptcy they endured 13 years ago. When he saw his wife take his son, Arthur, shopping for groceries, he looked at their receipts and see that they spent between $180-$250 each and every week. He gave up a long time ago trying to convert his wife to go to Aldi and not that other expansive god damned grocery store that they frequent every week. Hell, about 26 pitched fights about overspending on groceries nearly led to their divorce. Gloria won the fight. Calvin was trying to figure out how many years it would take until they filed bankruptcy again. After the meeting, after leaving the pharmacy and buying more sleeping pills and antacid, Calvin trudged to their locked front door while Cindy insipidly skipped ahead of him.
"Hurry up, Dad! Unlock the door!" commanded Cindy.
Calvin felt like he had been beaten up for 2 long hours as he struggled to the door to let them inside the sad house. Yet, he didn't realize until later that things would only get worse. In the worst meeting that he ever suffered in his fiftysome years, he started to realize that he was beginning to feel like Ms. Shrill's bitch!
Then,
he thought of a memorable video he saw. Holy shit! Ms. Shrill
not only reminded him of Peter Gabriel; actually, Ms. Shrill kinda sorta
reminded him of Robert Tilton. Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unhqk-sAtZ4 Sure, she shouted much less than Rev.
Tilton. However, there was the sanctimonious "GIVE US MONEY! WE ARE
A GOOD CAUSE!" theme in both places. Ten days before,
after sending out twentysome resumes and making some calls in his quest for a
new job, Calvin spent a few hours surfing YouTube.THEN HE SAW IT.
"OH, MY DEAR GOD.....," he started to pray. He
wasn’t violating the 2nd Commandment; he literally prayed at what he
just witnessed on YouTube.
Ten days later...after being sickened at this video, THEN he was shocked at Ms. Shrill giving a supposedly-compelling oration to parents and cheerleaders. And then comprehending a few similarities (the numerical amount of money was nearly same, only worse for Calvin and Gloria).
Ten days later...after being sickened at this video, THEN he was shocked at Ms. Shrill giving a supposedly-compelling oration to parents and cheerleaders. And then comprehending a few similarities (the numerical amount of money was nearly same, only worse for Calvin and Gloria).
This cannot...this cannot be happening to me! You bet your life it is!
YOU BET YOUR LIFE IT IS!
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