Go Hot Pink!

It's actually very easy to keep score in the bottom rung of Girl Scouts softball. You simply take the number of girls on each team. You multiply that by the number of innings. And then you write those two numbers down in the appropriate boxes.

It's a good thing we don't bother to keep score.

Or keep track of outs.

Or really much of anything at all except going out there and having as good a time as possible for three extended innings. When you have fifteen girls on one team and thirteen on the other, none of whom have any real concern for things like "throwing the ball to first base," "fielding the ball if it comes your way," or even "watching the ball in case it actually moves," a good time is pretty much all you can ask for.

And it was mostly what we got tonight, as Lauren's Hot Pink team took on the Lime Green team down at the field at Epochal President Elementary. The girls had a great time whacking away at the ball as it sat on its tee and then running merrily off to first base. The coaches had a pretty good time positioning the fielders in twelve different slots, the maximum our rules allow, which is kind of overkill since in practice the ball almost never reaches the baselines let alone the outfield. At times, the field bore no small resemblance to a pinball machine, with the ball caroming off various girls as it made its way out from home plate and then back in again. And most of the parents had a pretty good time watching.

Most of them.

As my dad taught me years ago, there is always that 10% that doesn't get The Word. And those parents ended up sitting right behind our team tonight. The Good Humor Twins were just shocked - SHOCKED! I tell you - that we didn't have all fifteen of our girls in the outfield at once, and they spent the entire game making faces and complaining loudly about how excruciating this made the whole affair. Then they spent about twenty minutes afterward complaining to both sets of coaches about it, and threatening to call the Girl Scouts organization and report us.

Well I certainly hope they spell my name right when they do.

The sad thing is that those parents weren't even there for our team - their poor unfortunate daughter plays for the other team. And yet they felt the need to eat lemons and urinate vinegar all over our side of the field. Next time, we position them at the bottom of a very large hole in deep right field and give them periscopes to watch the game. If they're good, we might even retrieve them afterward.

But such morons are not what this night was all about. It was about having a good time, learning some of the basics of softball, and whiling away a beautiful summer evening playing ball. And whiling was accomplished, yes indeed it was.

Go, Hot Pink!