[Be sure to read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.]
Dear Coach Sean,
It was so nice to see you Saturday morning. At the draft. For youth football. I trust that you will be lending your superior coaching skills to yet another sport? Was it nice to see me, wearing my lucky Eagles’ cap, pulling up in the family mini-van, dropping off Jason, and then finding a nice place to park, and then walking inside, and then sitting down with you, and Alex Burgher, and Marv Gomsche, and Lloyd Overbee, and that nut from Tullemore Motors? Was it nice for you to see me then take out a spiral notebook, and a pen, and then proceed to draft the best frickin’ sixth grade tackle football team this town has ever seen?
I bet that made you think. I bet when I said, “I choose J-Dawg,” my own flesh and blood, you nearly vomited and swallowed it, thereby nearly choking on said vomit. Well, get used to it. And maybe add a little pico de gallo for taste, because that is going to be what they call in the science field “a common occurrence.” I am going to teach you a thing or two about football and how to get results from boys in the aforementioned age bracket. A thing or two about how to get results without using terms like “Stud,” which alienate and confuse parents and cause children to wonder too much about sexual relations and pregnancy and how it all happens. And how it usually happens in the backseat of a station wagon and how Meatloaf doesn’t have to be playing but, damn near anything, and before you know it, you’ve signed up for 18+ years of agony.
Anyway, when J-Dawg and I and the rest of the Maaco Rabbits get done with this season you will have firsthand knowledge about being on the business end of a 63-0 shutout. And that is not even a statement. That is something that the YMCA record-keeper should be confidently typing up for the 2002 season book, because nearly everyone in this city will be saying, at some point, “There was a 63-0 shutout and Gary Meicen and his boy were responsible for it. It happened in 2002, and then J-Dawg went on to be an astronaut and a professional wrestler.”
And while I am at it, there is a cheetah running through my home, Sean. That cheetah is named D-i-v-o-r-c-e. This summer has not been a Kodak moment for the Meicens. I’ve witnessed some of my soon to be ex-wife’s memos, and frankly, I’m fairly crushed. So crushed that a better part of my summer was spent in the basement rec room listening to Bread and smoking Newports. Drinking some old bottles of Ting soda. Then shuffling into the office and weeping in my cube. Then more Bread. Then fishing with Don, the Navajo fella who is always throwing a line off the bridge.
Here’s how our talks went:
Don: Wife?
Me: Yep (sigh).
All summer long. But the summer is ending, and the Meicens are in a phase I call, “regrouping.” In regrouping, we assess our problem(s): the wife, you, etc. And eliminate them, one-by-one. You can make book on two things: the fact that the wife will soon be in a depressing little studio over the bakery near the post office, having sexual intercourse with whomever she chooses, and B) J-Dawg and I will put an end to your coaching days by beating your squad of scrubs, and gloating.
What’s the matter Sean? Cat got your tongue? Oh yeah, this is a letter. A one way correspondence. A one way ticket to “Thanks for screwing-up-my-life, buddyville.”
See you on Field 6, jerk. Field 6. El Fieldo numero seis.
Regards,
Gary Meicen
Accountant — Taft Industries
Single Father
& Head Coach of the Maaco Rabbits (who have already practiced and bonded at a water park)