The Worst Cheerleader. In the WORLD!!!

I went to the chiropractor yesterday,and somehow he convinced me I need to return today...

I was nervous and needed a Xanax before going...However, since I have a little bit of fear when it comes to mind altering substances, and alas I also had no prescription for such substances, I compensated instead with three cups of coffee.  Because that is how I always wisely handle stress.  Well, either coffee or cleaning, but since I was down in the back, cleaning was out.

Anyway, while at the chiropractor, I learned he had recently been in my home town to go quail hunting, and that the basketball tournament was going on...And he was blown away by how packed a town of 1200 could be for just a tournament.

I told him I remembered this tournament well.  It was always the second weekend of December when I was in school.  I can remember because I often had to cheer on my birthday...

And that annoyed me.

It was kind of like going to work on your birthday.  It just shouldn't happen.  As a matter of fact, I have ALWAYS taken the day off on my birthday, except this year someone else asked off before I got the chance (I don't want to name names or point fingers, but seriously Tom...You act like your brother lives in California and you only see him once or twice a year.  I swear, sometimes you are so SELFISH!!!)

Anyhoo...I worked.  And thankfully I didn't have any patients crash...Because that happened one time when I was working on my birthday, and the entire time I was pushing drugs and trying to avoid what I feared was an inevitable code I kept thinking, "Nobody should have to deal with life and death on their birthday."  So from then on I took the day off on my birthday.

But this post is not about nursing.  It's about cheer leading...

And the fact that I think I was the perhaps worst cheerleader ever.

Of course, nobody realized what a TERRIBLE cheerleader I was.  I kept that secret in the darkest recesses of my heart.  The secret?  I don't care for sports.  I have no idea WHY I was a cheerleader, except it was a group that I knew I would belong in, and the group would be "my" group, and therefore I wouldn't be the loser who wasn't in sports...Because that's sadly kind of how small town life is.  There's the sports people, the band people, and the losers...

Hey!  I don't make these rules!  I'm just listing them as I saw them in high school.

So...I didn't have the self discipline to learn an instrument.   Cheer leading was the only alternative I could see in my quest to avoid total dorkdom in the eyes of the greater LHS school district...

Besides the fact that I can be really loud, and I am bossy...And let's all be real that being bossy is at the heart of cheer leading:  Come on guys!  You can do it!  Shoot it!  Shoot it!

Ooor, how about yelling DEFENSE!!  DEFENSE!! over and over and over...

It's really just a giant session of lecturing athletes to do what they're supposed to be doing anyway.

Sadly, I have no good football analogies, as the only thing I garnered was that we only had four downs to get ten yards, and then we lost the ball...And touchdowns were good...And sometimes they got extra points for kicking...And I could never figure out when we were supposed to go for a field goal, or why some touchdowns were six points and others were seven...

Again.  I was quite obviously the best, most dedicated cheerleader.  EVER.

I did actually understand Basketball.  I knew exactly what was going on all through the game.

You can congratulate me now, if you wish...

My senior year our boys basketball team was awesome.  So awesome that they went to the state play offs for the first time in like twenty years or some such ridiculously large amount of time...

Do you want to know what my reaction to our play off status?  It is truly a sad, sad, thing...

"Well, crap.  This means I have to cheer one more game.  I have to wear purple at least one more time.  And I have to act like I'm happy about the whole situation or I will undoubtedly be tarred and feathered by the entire town."  I'm telling you, Gentle Reader, sometimes it is just so DIFFICULT to be me.  Seriously.  You have no idea.

Well, based on our standings when we went into the State Tournament if we even lost one game we were eliminated. Out of the running...

O-U-T.

Out.

Guess what, Gentle Reader.

We lost.  And while all of my fellow schoolmates and townsfolk who had driven 150 miles to watch their hometown heroes sweat, sacrifice, and give their all for the glory of the Tigers wept and hugged and said, "You boys played great.  You did a great job.  We are so proud of you..."  and blahbideeblahblahblah....yadayadayada...

I sat their and put on my best, most sincerely sympathetic look and secretly in my heart of hearts said, "Thank goodness I never have to wear purple again for as long as I live."

And I didn't for over fifteen years.  In the last two years or so plum has gradually made an appearance in my wardrobe.  But purple as in royal purple with gold like the LA Lakers?

Not so much Gentle Reader.

Not. So. Much.

And you thought I had already revealed all of my deep dark secrets!