How Can I When I'm Steamin'
It finally happened! I had words with one of our runners and it wasn't pretty.
I was told to "chill" by a 15 year old girl. I wasn't pleased. Not by a long shot. In fact, I was steaming mad to say the least. Chill? Not happening! Nope. Too steaming mad for that to take place.
We have a master manipulator on our team. She's one of our top three runners and one with attitude. It was bound to come to a head given the circumstances the last few weeks.
We had a meet yesterday. We explicitly told the team, "call your parents and tell them to be at the school at 8 pm." We arrived at the school right about that time after a long afternoon that started at 1 pm. We, as coaches (two of us) were dead tired and ready to go home.
While waiting for Brenna who missed her ride with one of the other kids and was calling home, we realized the other girl went into the school to take a shower (very unusual) so we knew we'd have to wait for her anyway. In the meantime I offered to give Brenna a ride home still waiting for M to come back outside. A few minutes later, one of the boys offered to take Brenna home because he had to drive by her road anyhow which turned out to be a good thing. So they left. Now it was me and the other coach with girl #2 coming out of the school, all wet from her shower, and the conversation went like this:
Coach Bill: "Who's picking you up M?
M: "my mother"
Coach Bill: "Where is she?" (looking around)
M: "She's coming, you can leave."
Coach Bill: "Why isn't she here?"
M: "I have to call her."
ME: "What time did we tell you to have your parents here?"
M: "I had to take a shower."
ME: "M....... WHAT TIME DID WE TELL YOU TO HAVE YOUR PARENTS HERE? (looking at my watch 8:15 now)
M: "I'm going to call her right now.....(starts to dial her cell phone)
ME: "WHAT TIME DID WE TELL YOU TO HAVE YOUR PARENTS HERE?
M: "Chill"
ME: "Don't tell me to chill. WHAT TIME DID WE TELL YOU TO HAVE YOUR PARENTS HERE?
M: "Chill"
Coach Bill: "If you had to take a shower, you could have had your mother here waiting, not us." (voice rising)
M: "You don't have to stay."
Coach Bill: "We always stay until the last runner goes home, you know that."
M: "No, you didn't the other day"
Coach Bill: "What day?" (now, he's ripping mad)
M: "Saturday when we came home from Manchester."
By then she's talking on the phone about getting picked up. She lives at least 20 minutes away. Bill and I are muttering to each other. So we waited, and we waited with M standing with her back against the school brick wall not saying a word to us. It's dark, chilly and we are tired. Now we are both steaming. Bill and I are giving each other knowing looks rolling our eyes and mumbling to ourselves and each other as we stand outside the school waiting for this parent. I've never seen her mom in two years of coaching her. That's a problem to start with as far as I'm concerned .
So I said to Bill quietly while we were waiting for M's mom to appear, "so Bill, would you have ever dared to tell your coach to "chill? What do you expect would have happened if you did?" He just laughed thinking about it. Not a chance that would have happened 45 years ago. Not a chance.
Bill and I had talked about this last Saturday, just starting to figure things out. That's why we were onto her this night. Last Saturday she disappeared quickly, and we may never have known except one of the other girl's dad showed up looking for his daughter as we were starting to leave ourselves. We thought everyone went home with parents and was just trying to figure out where Grace went, when she came from behind the building (from the direction of the dorms) out of breath with a guilty look on her face mumbling something about M having to get her laptop at the dorms as she got into her dad's car. So that's where M went?
We have a school that has dorms behind it filled with about 100+ students. Some of these kids are coming from troubled homes from all over the country. Others come for various reasons. There seems to be a young man in one of those dorms M's interested in. He's trouble. We know it. The AD knows it. He's a marked man right now. M seems amused by him.
So we figured her scheme. We got back to the school from Manchester at 5pm on Saturday. She tells her mom she needs to be picked up at 6pm even though we told everyone 5pm, and she's got a whole free hour roaming the place with her dorm friend. It must have worked then, and now at 8 pm on a Friday night, a week later, she figured she'd try it again. Come to find out this is actually the third time because looking back the weekend I had my conference Bill said she sort of disappeared back then too.
Not on our watch anymore. We spoiled her plans. She's mad. We're mad. It's a good thing we have a weekend to "CHILL."
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