Tale #25: A Slushy Toy Football

In 2017, we officially moved into our new rehearsal space. The Parks and Recreation Department of Verona purchased our old pole shed building to use for truck storage. The City of Verona very generously donated the land at the site of our new building and the parking lot.

Part of that arrangement with the City of Verona was that the Verona Parks and Recreation Dance Program could use our dance studio space for their after-school dance classes. This was a fairly popular program in our community and it had a large population of students.

This now meant a large population of parents, babysitters, and siblings sitting in our brand new lobby space every weekday afternoon.

Our new lobby was beautiful. On the walls were musical notes and on the floor were stars all recognizing the many amazing donors whose contributions made the building a reality. We had large windows that filled the room with light. We loved it.

As one of the many people who worked hard in the efforts to make this dream space a reality, I felt very attached to the building and personally responsible for its upkeep and wellbeing. So when people demonstrated anything less than the utmost respect for our space, it made me quite agitated.

I would often be in the building as well during the afternoons to teach my own private lessons. I found myself agitated often and it all boiled down to one problem: distracted adults.

Have you ever noticed how often parents are on their phones or chatting with other adults when they should be supervising their children?

I certainly have.

We had numerous issues our first year in the new building during this after-school program. Kids were drawing on the walls, dragging furniture over our donor stars on the lobby floor, playing in the water fountain, messing around in the cleaning closet, putting stickers on our furniture, running around the theater, throwing rocks in our flower garden, climbing on the concession counter; the list goes on and on…and on.

One of the worst issues we had involved a nine-year-old, a distracted parent, and a sopping wet football.

It was one of those winter afternoons in Wisconsin where everything outside is just disgustingly slushy. This one family had a kid in dance class, a kid doing homework, a mom talking to her friend, and a son throwing a toy football with his friend in the middle of our parking lot. 

The fact alone that she was letting her kid throw a football in the middle of a very active parking lot was problematic enough. I went outside and told the boys they needed to at least stand on the entry sidewalk. They did that for about two seconds then went right back to the parking lot. 

That afternoon, I had a break in between lessons so I was doing some busy work in the office. I got hungry so I did what I always did and headed to the kitchen to steal a snack from the youth show rehearsal snack bin. I was on my way across the lobby to the kitchen when the kid came back inside holding his sopping wet football.

Before I could even reach the kitchen, he hurled that slushy toy football with all of his might straight at the wall that held all of our donor recognition musical notes.

I pulled a full directional change, went right up to him and said, “Hey [insert name here]! You do not do that in our building.” Now I knew who this kid was from his role in our current youth production, but he probably had no idea who I was. So, the fact that I scolded him by name definitely took him by surprise. 

Even after this full interaction, the mom still had not realized anything had happened (let alone that her kid was actually back inside the building). I went up to her and calmly explained exactly what he did and exactly what I had said to him and she gave me nothing. She didn’t even react. She just kind of nodded and went back to talking with her friend.

Therefore, I was agitated.

I told Mama Terry about it and she agreed that it just really wasn’t ok for children to be doing that in our new space. She emailed the parent and reiterated what had happened and asked that they be more considerate of the building. My mom cc-ed the head of the recreation department as well so he was aware of what was happening in our space.

The mom in question definitely did not appreciate being scolded let alone with the program director cc-ed on the email.

Now over the years, I have gotten to know this particular family well and have a genuine fondness for their kids. The mom is not a bad person. In this incident, she was just a distracted person.

I do not have kids of my own yet so I’m sure there will come a day when I am the recipient of a scolding for not watching my kids closely. I’ve definitely been the recipient of a scolding for not watching my dog closely if that counts in any way.