Words of Wisdom

Youth is wasted on the young.

Monday 21 June 2010

In Which I Lose My Usual Good Humour and Become A Protective and Pissed Off Mother.

A few weeks ago the Baby Angel took a fall in her netball match. This is not unusual; she plays hard and sometimes bounces off the bitumen, but this time it was different. The rain was coming down and her line of sight wasn't good. She slipped, tripped over her opponent's leg and 'rolled' her ankle. I knew it was bad when she asked to come off. She never comes off.

We iced it and she sat out the last 10 minutes of the game. By the time we were ready to go she could weight bear and was able to hobble along. She missed training and rested during the week and by the following weekend she felt ready to play again. She did her normal two matches with a strapped ankle (just in case) and all was well.

The following week was a bye.

This week she had mentioned that occasionally, if she twisted the wrong way, or sat on her foot, her ankle still hurt so we strapped her up again for Saturday's game.

When we got to the courts I was appalled to see the amount of water lying on the surface. Some matches had already started and it appeared that no-one was making any effort to clear the courts. A large 'squeegee' on wheels stood unattended in the far corner.


Now this may not look like much water to you but have a look at this closer shot. Do you see the reddish sheen through the puddle? That's algae. The water had obviously been lying there long enough for a growth to develop.
Sensing the possibility of disaster, I fetched the squeegee and started to try and sweep some of the thick of the water off the playing area on the BA's court. When I attacked the deeper, reddish puddle, I nearly ended up on my butt. The stuff was like oil on the court!!!!!

I alerted the umpires, who were standing around itching to start the game. Their response was to call out to the players " Look out for this slippery spot here on the court!"

I was stunned. Surely they were not going to let the match start with the court in that condition?

Well, you can hear this coming can't you. Around 3 minutes into the first quarter, The BA went down like a ton of bricks.
She has now got to spend 6 weeks resting the ankle, which basically wipes out her season. She is devastated and I am one pissed off mama. I continued my court sweeping as she watched her team and noticed that once the water had been swept away, the algae very quickly turned to a powdery, non-slip dust. grrrrrr

I intend to pen a strongly warded letter to the PE staff.

8 comments:

Jill said...

:-( :-( :-(

I hope it gets better quickly!

Jill said...

Incidentally, I was thinking about you this past week. For some reason I can't quite figure out, I started the huge undertaking of cleaning out my boy's room. We were sorting playmobile from lego from bioncle and I was all, "Won't it be GREAT to be able to find the toys you want?" And all he would do was shrug.

Finally I said, "It's okay if you don't care. You can say it if you don't think it's going to be all that great." So he says, "I don't really care if you don't."

Whatever. At least we got the gum wrappers and bits of torn instruction manuals untangled from the various toys. We took out almost two full bags of garbage & one bag of give away toys!

natalie said...

Oh, my! Poor girl. I'm glad Mama Bear came out and I hope you do write a scathing letter to the officials. Students and atheletes should never play in conditions that have possible danger potential.

Arizaphale said...

Jill; You have my heart felt sympathy. I mean, is it a boy thing? An 11 year old thing or just a personality thing?

Nat: Thanks mate. I'm formulating it now....

DanYells said...

that's horrible!

I thought this was going to be a post about the french fry giving her a smoke or something.

Hope her ankle feels better and that you get a good response from your letter.

Maggie said...

Oh no! :( How awful -- hope it's better soon!

A Free Man said...

So the Australian obsession with occupational health and safety doesn't extend to school netball?

Hope she mends quickly, poor lassie.

Jill said...

Arizaphale - I don't know! All I really know for certain is that thank goodness all those gum wrappers are in the garbage now! At least I can breath easy when I go up to put him to bed.