A Wet Game

So I reffed soccer on Monday night at 7:30. So I’m on my way to the field, everything’s great, the weather’s nice, it’s sunny, and yes, I think I could even hear a bird chirping here and there. As I crossed the bridge from downtown to Lakeshore, I started seeing little wet spots appearing on my windshield. I thought nothing of it and merely closed my sunroof. I found a pretty mint parking spot, grabbed my gear, and headed to the field. I threw on my new Adidas Predator Absolutes (yes, the cleats designed and worn by David Beckham himself…sure, it doesn’t make me any better, but they’re white and gold, and I just know that if Jesus ever played soccer he would ditch his sandals in a heartbeats and strap these babies on), met with the only linesman that showed up (helpful, aren’t they?), and talked to the coaches. As I was making my way down the field to get the game cards, the rain started. First it just rained a little; just enough to make my game cards nice and soggy as I put them back in my pocket. Once I blew the whistle to start the match, it was like telling the clouds themselves to piss on us; it came down like a mofo. It must have poured for a solid 30-35 minutes into the half. Now, I have nothing wrong with rain, and I don’t even mind getting wet, especially when playing soccer. But when you have in your pocket several sheets of mere paper with extremely important information on them (i.e. information so that you get paid for being out in the shitstorm in the first place), it’s not so much fun. So with one hand on my trusty whistle and the other doing its best to cover my pocket where the papers hid, I did the best I could to call what I could see (which wasn’t much since it was basically raining in my eyes). To make matters worse, the game was a U14 vs U16 boys match, which meant that the one team was considerably stacked against the other. And when I say “considerably,” I mean they were a straight-up rapeshow. I had to call a penalty kick against the youngins several minutes in, as one of their defenders had a questionable hand ball in the 18 yard box. With a 1-0 lead, the older team went on to score about 7 or 8 more goals before the half was over…the first half. By this point the rain had subsided almost to a stop, but because there was so much moisture simply hanging in the air it might as well have been raining anyways. The second half continued, the younger team inevitably defeated, the older team slacking off and lazy. They scored an additional 5 or 6 more goals before the defense slacked off so much that they let a little attacker in and he scored the first goal for his team, and they actually went on to score another not too long after. As nice as that is, they still lost hardcore by 13-2. Ouch.

I was actually supposed to ref on Tuesday night as well, but the game was cancelled as it basically rained non-stop all day long and the field would have been a total mess. We ended up carrying on with our plans that we had for after the game anyways; a wee bit of a “double-date” if you will between myself and Jill and both of our best friends (who are also fairly good friends…and perhaps will soon be friends with benefits…sexual benefits that is, AYO!). Anywhoo that was a good time for sure, and then it was back to work for me the next day…eww. I spent the end of Tuesday, all of Wednesday, Thursday, and today doing the refresh (setting up the new computers, installing all the applications, backing up user data and restoring it onto the new machines, etc.) for all the new equipment for the office. And yes, I’m basically doing it all myself, and it’s the most tedious stuff in the world. Anyways, thank God the weekend is finally here, I think I would rather take my own life than work another day.