That Rodney, He's a Card

So there's this thing that's occupying most of our mental and emotional energies lately, leaving both Aerie and me somewhat useless at the end of the day. The thing is, it's not something I can really write or talk about much; it's a painful family situation that's not my story to tell, but it makes us both sad. And it sends ripples across the family pond, creating other situations that need resolutions. Since Aerie is the World's Most Capable Woman, she's the go-to gal for resolutions, making her more sad, and more tired, and it's just kind of wearing us both down a little bit.

Luckily, the sun may be coming out tomorrow, etc. etc., and everything will be fine, though different. In the meantime, I'm wasting my free time blowing up jewels on Facebook and robbing drug dealers and taking over gang territories on Playstation 2, so I'm not posting much. So here are a couple of amusing anecdotes about my day ushering at the big football game. Smiles everyone, smiles!

So as I may have mentioned, I supervise one of the gates through which students enter the stadium. Rodney's my bullhorn man; it's his job to work the crowd when the lines build up, reminding students to have their student ID's out and working to redistribute the lines evenly. For some reason, whenever people see a line, they think they have to stand in it, even if there are shorter lines fifteen feet away.

Anyway! That's Rodney's job: working the crowd with a bullhorn. I tell him, if the students ask him to use his bullhorn to get a good fight song going, or other school cheer etc. etc., that's great, that's just good customer service, by all means, indulge them. Just never ever, as in never, hand over the bullhorn.

So the rush comes, and I look up, and I see Rodney standing out there, surrounded by four hot, scantily-clad college girls. And one of them is holding his bullhorn. So I go out there and ask him, "Rodney, what happened to not relinquishing control of your bullhorn?" And he grins at me, looks down, and quietly says, "I know. They just smelled so good."

So there's that.

And then! Around halftime I notice a group of adorable little girls in blue cheerleader outfits enthusiastically belting out a cheer routine. I wouldn't guess that elementaries have cheer squads, but they certainly didn't look old enough for middle school. So they're out there doing their thing, and there's a bucket in front of them, and one of their mothers is holding a giant poster board that quite clearly solicits donations to help them travel to somesuchplace or nother for a cheer competition of some kind.

Well, crap.

I know this is not allowed, but I call on the radio for confirmation from my higher ups that I'm going to have to be the heavy here. I describe the situation and ask, "Do I have to put a stop to that?" I get the one word reply: "Yes."

Well, crap.

So I approach the mother with the sign, and I tell her, "I hate to be the guy that has to tell little girls they can't do their cheer routine," etc. etc. "It's against University's Rules and Regulations," etc. etc. "But they can't do that here." She was very nice. She understood. We watched them finish their chant, then she gathered up the girls, who were very excited to be doing their thing outside the giant stadium, and they moved on. I hope they didn't move far, just far enough to be off of University property and still well within reach of lots of potential donors. Or at least out of my sight range.

So there you go. Those are my Bad Guy stories for today. The game was too early and the opponent too unranked for the students to come out in drunken droves, so I only got to anger a mere handful. But at least I got to crush a middle-aged man's flirtations and chase off a gang of adorable little girls.