Part II, One Leading, Others Trying to Follow

Calvin was shocked.  What the hell did his wife and him get themselves into?  He felt literally robbed.  There was a slogan back in the 70s.  When someone got a raw deal they called it, "Screwed! Blewed and tattooed!!"   It wasn't even a matter of Cindy using her formidable persuasive powers on her parents like she sometimes did.  Prior to that odious  first meeting, everyone in the family wanted Cindy to be a cheerleader.  She was a cheerleader for about 2 years.  Why stop a good thing? 
No one imagined spending under $2,000 for her extra-curricular activity.  
That was the focal point of the resentment Cindy's parents had.  How could cheerleading in 1 damn year be more expensive than all the spending of all the extra-curricular activities of their son, Arthur, in the 8 years of primary and secondary school? 
How could cheerleading in 1 damn year be twice as expensive than the registration fee they paid at Needsville High School for Cindy's education in her freshman year?  
Who is arguing that cheerleading is WORTH more than the education she was getting her freshman year?  That was especially so, because Cindy was an outstanding student who earned the Presidential Award when she graduated 8th grade.  She would learn a great deal her freshman year.  
So.....who is arguing that cheerleading 1 year is WORTH more than the education she was getting her freshman year?  NO ONE, not even Ms. Shrill would say that.  Even she knew better. 
During that infamous 1st meeting, when a very negative 1st impression was made, Ms. Shrill ordered parents to read the emails she would send them. She indicated that they would sometimes be one a day.  About one month after the 1st meeting, Ms. Shrill asserted, 
"Please know that we must always prepay for everything and you WILL be held responsible for the payments for all items received or that your athlete participates in. If you get too far behind in your fees your daughter may not be able to receive future items."

Oh, I get it.  It really makes sense, because there were some parents of cheerleaders that she had in the past chafing at paying exorbitant amounts of money.  It was well know that Ms. Shrill had to work hard to get money out of them (oh, how dare they!).  So, Ms. Shrill, being the wily coach she is, wanted to send out a warning to the parents out there that yanking well over $1,000 out of their pocketbooks was no mere whimsical idea, no threat, no, it was a promise.  Pay on time, dammit, and don't be late.  

One email, in particular, was so far, the worst.  Calvin was so pissed off with it, he deleted it.  Ms. Shrill said something to the effect that a parents' attitude about cheerleading would be reflected in their daughter.  
Oh really, Ms. Shrill?  So, not only are you blatantly screwing our household's finances (they weren't on a very firm footing to begin with), but you want us to lie to Cindy and tell her how pleased we are taking it up the ass with all this $$ you ask from us.  Then, before he deleted that email, he swore at her. 

Then he took a deep breath.  He calmed down.  He experienced some good news because he was hired again and would be working at downtown Chicago.  Maybe after they dug themselves out of the hole he created from being laid off at his old job, maybe just maybe, he would accept paying the $155 a month more gracefully.  
 He resolved that even if Ms. Shrill were to ask Gloria and him for $1,000,000, he would never hate her.  He would only hate what she did and all the money she took from them.  He would hate the sin, not the sinner.  He went to Church every week, he prayed several times a day (usually, at least once every day).  He read the Bible enough to know Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for them."  Wow, that's going to be extremely difficult.  Ummm, Jesus, isn't it enough to not hate her?  
Ms. Shrill................sigh..............

Well, Calvin couldn't knock success. How can you?  Ms. Shrill led the cheerleading team of the great city of Needsville to a state championship.  It was obvious she wanted another championship for the cheerleaders.  Calvin guessed that she was riding very high in the community.  It's a simple and well known fact that it's easier to ask for more when you are winning and harder to ask for $$ when you are a loser.  Ms. Shrill wasn't a  loser. 
Plus, Cindy was selected for the cheerleading team.  Cindy was physically and mentally strong. About the only way that Cindy wouldn't be a successful marine biologist would be if she got pregnant before the age of 21.  He saw his daughter in action.  He should know more about his daughter and the rare times she hung out with boys.  Maybe, it wasn't so rare.   Yet, from the times he witnessed it, she was very decisive, very strong and well....her daughter was pretty smart with boys her age.  Ms. Shrill bragged and bragged at the 1st meeting how she went to students' parties.  She talked about kicking girls off the cheerleading team each and every year.  He sure hoped she was telling truth.  Was she bullshitting or telling the truth? Yeah, he WISHED Ms. Shrill would attend a party(s) Cindy went to.  He really, really did!! He highly doubted that would occur her freshman year, Cindy was a freshman, after all, she wouldn't be going to parties.  
As Calvin kept thinking about this awful financial situation, he figured there were only 3 ways all this fucking $$ that Calvin and Gloria paid to Needsville High School Cheerleading would be worth it:
1.  Cindy does fine the 4 yrs as cheerleader and gets a humongous scholarship that would be equal or greater than all that damn $$ her parents poured into Needsville High School Cheerleading. 
2.  Ms. Shrill goes to a party where Cindy is, admonishes her into doing something different and saves Cindy from a car accident that would have badly hurt or killed her. 
3.  Ms. Shrill goes to a party where Cindy is, admonishes her into doing something different and prevents Cindy from getting pregnant.  
So, between Calvin, Gloria and Ms. Shrill's attentiveness to Cindy, his daughter would likely get her diploma in safe condition and in one piece. Merely being safe, merely getting a damn diploma wasn't worth $5,000 spent over 4 damn years ! 

All that other stuff Ms. Shrill bragged that she would do for her daughter and the rest of the cheerleaders was bullshit, pure and simple!  
1. How she was going to make the cheerleaders have a stronger work ethic!  (Just so much specious bullshit!) What she wasn't telling the parents and cheerleaders was that while she might instill a work ethic and discipline on the adolescents, there were over 50 ways to instill a good work ethic and discipline on kids. Both parents were living proof of that.  As a 26-year veteran at one of the largest metropolitan hospitals in Chicago, Gloria was one of the best nurses that hospital had.  He wasn't  exaggerating; smart people knew how incredibly difficult being a nurse was at that hospital. Every year that big hospital put more and more demands on those that worked there.  This occurred 25 consecutive years! Not only was Calvin's wife faced with a number of tough decisions each and every shift she made as a fulltime nurse; Gloria made the right decisions !!!
Calvin didn't pat himself on the back very often but every boss he had in the last 10 years complemented him on his work ethic.  Calvin became a legal writer in a website that is read across the nation.  Calvin engineered a refinancing of the family's mortgage and put together all the paperwork needed without Gloria's help.  All she had to do was show up at the closing.  Calvin had been a board member for a local governmental body for over a decade. Calvin earned the confidence of his neighbors by hard work.  Calvin thought and used money-saving actions that his parents hadn't dreamed of.  
 Furthermore, Cindy was showing all the signs of learning a very good, strong work ethic with or without her DAMN cheerleading coach! 
2. How Ms. Shrill would encourage Cindy and her other cheerleaders to do well in school. Bullshit again!  No one had to tell Cindy how to do well in school ! Cindy at 14 was smart enough to pass a lot of college's freshman courses (let alone high school).  Why?  Because his daughter worked hard at school each and every year since 1st grade!
His daughter asked Calvin to quiz her 5-10 years ago so she would do well on tests.  Now, Cindy was so smart, she didn't need his help and was doing better on her tests. More importantly, chances are that Cindy won't need her damn coach to tell her EVER how she should do well in school.  
3.  How Ms. Shrill would make the cheerleaders into well prepared young women.  Again, there's 50 ways to do that. If that happens, yippee, but to make it sound like, to imply, insinuate and pontificate that being on her squad was one of several ways to be well prepared was once again bullshit.  Calvin was in far more job interviews than Ms. Shrill.  Calvin could interview circles around that sanctimonious, haughty bitch.  Calvin read Ladders website, read what What Color Is Your Parachute, was a better writer.  Calvin could damn well counsel his daughter on how to be well prepared for a number of things, ESPECIALLY a job search! 
Those were the only 3 ways all that damn money was worth it.  It was only a matter of time before the family went bankrupt.  Maybe 10 years, maybe 20 years, they were heading the same way they ended up back in 2003.  To avoid bankruptcy, it would take his wife finally seeing the light about Aldi, stop pissing their money away on pets, vet bills, reducing the air conditioning in the summer, not firing up the furnace so damn much in the winter, or maybe Arthur or Cindy getting rich 15 years from now and help them out financially.  He had NO RIGHT to expect that out of his two kids. 
Then, Calvin came to a sadder, darker revelation that he suspected years ago.  There were no parents on the cheerleading team living below the poverty line.  That was extremely obvious.  
It was possible that a few of the cheerleading parents were rich.  He wasn't sure, but he knew from when his son was on the football team that there were football parents who lived in near-mansions. (All because of very work, of course!)  Nearly all the parents, including Calvin and Gloria, were in the middle class.  But he learned from his Sociology class that there was a "lower middle class" and an "upper middle class".  There were undoubtedly parents from the upper middle class.  There were parents that had no problem giving Ms. Shrill her damn money and were grateful that she would engage their daughter in a relatively safe and productive environment.  They were worrying about the summer vacation (contrary to Cindy's family), than they were what they paid for cheerleading.  
Finances were sometimes a mere matter of arithmetic.   Gloria and Calvin didn't make enough money to pay their bills.  Forking out about $1,200 was hurting their finances even worse.  That wasn't a complaint; that was arithmetic, Calvin could prove it!!  There were no signs that Gloria was learning how to save more money.  Calvin was in the best paying job of his life, yet the family was having more financial problems than expected.  They had to pay out of their pocket Arthur's entire upcoming college semester tuition because of Arthur's academic mistakes. Scarce time and money was being spent on another grandniece's college expenses, because Gloria said so.  If he didn't want a divorce, there wasn't shit Calvin could say about that. 
Calvin didn't want to make the realization that his daughter being on the cheerleading team was a matter of class and wisely avoiding crushing expenses.  He really didn't, but what a sorry society we lived in!!  We don't even have excellent presidential candidates to choose from this year.  The Olympics might hurt someone from merely drinking the water.  How much worse was 2016 going to get??
Calvin figured it was only a matter of time until he got pissed off with Ms. Shrill's new demands.  Of course, that happened.  There was a misunderstanding in June and an odious email in July. UGH! It was so bad that Calvin had no choice after his dear daughter asked him to but to get his brothers and sisters involved.  He never asked to be a salesman.  Being one for the cheerleaders made him want to vomit all over Ms. Shrill.  Oh gee, there's a 4th instance where the cheerleading money might worth it, but, no, it really wasn't.  We were talking about over $1,000 after all! 

When it was all said and done with, was their daughter really happy??  No, she yelled at her mom repeatedly that summer.  She yelled at her to the point that Gloria cried once.  She frequently seemed to need money from Calvin.  Wait a minute!!! Wasn't that money demand supposed to be used to pay down a credit card?? Was it really meant for you, Cindy? Does the world really revolve around you?  Lots of fathers brag and describe their daughters as princesses.  Well, who the HELL DIED and made Cindy a Queen??  A usurping adolescent queen in an unhappy family! 

to be continued 


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One Leading, Others Trying to Follow

One Leading, Others Trying to Follow,  Part 1  (a fictional story!)

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 2^nd 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).

This cannot...this cannot be happening to me!  You bet your life it is!  YOU BET YOUR LIFE IT IS!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unhqk-sAtZ4