Should I declare bankruptcy before or after my son’s AAU basketball season?

I recently registered my son for AAU basketball, which is exciting because I don’t have an NBA salary, and I’m told this is the best way to ensure my son will one day earn one. The registration fee was a kabillion dollars, which did not cover uniforms, gym rental, equipment, tournament participation, or the small palette of electrolyte drinks he requires for baseline hydration, but, hey! There’s an entrance fee for everything. 

First, though, I had to Venmo a stranger a quarter of a million dollars for my son to try out, which is a totally normal thing to pay for, since I wouldn’t expect anyone in an Adidas track suit to use their eyeballs for free, while hand-selecting the players that will optimize their roster, and finance their gas money to and from this insane tournament schedule that appears to take us well into Spring 2034. I then received an e-mail at midnight congratulating us on our assignment to the Suffolk Sonics, and letting us know that practice would begin the next day at 6 a.m.--location TBD. We were in!!

My son refers to basketball as his “main sport,” as if he were Bo Jackson and Nike might sponsor him for a cross-training sneaker with all of his other athletic pursuits. But really, my son spends his entire day dunking on me and air-balling tissues into the waste basket. Basketball is The Sport, so naturally, we cannot possibly just play a town intramural league for the love of the game. What? And risk being unserious? About his and our future!? 

The trouble with this private league, in addition to the moral dilemma of advancing an elitist athletic industrial complex, though, is that the practice schedule changes every 15 minutes. The WhatsApp group chat pings me all day: “Sorry for the late notice but we are changing venues tonight!!” This wouldn’t otherwise pose a problem (if I were in the NBA and therefore had a concierge-level limo service to shuttle my son across state lines to elite training facilities), but alas, I am a single parent with four jobs, so the fact that I was in the parking lot last night already when they changed the venue was--haha!--not my favorite part. I dare not express my displeasure, though, as the last time I asked in WhatsApp if the practice schedule was solidified for the week, my son said, “Bruh. Lowkey no one tryna catch strays in the group chat,” which I assume means LeBron James’s mom would never.

We’ve only had one tournament so far, for which I paid half a gajillion dollars to park and to enter the gym in order to watch the child I grew in my womb get body-checked by a swarm of men I can only assume the opposing team poached from a construction site the morning of the tournament. In other words, the perfect training grounds for my son to gro pro!! The only rub was that his coach wasn’t even there. (Apparently he was at a game for the other private league team he coaches?) So someone’s dad hopped in, and while he didn’t know any of the kid’s names, or any of the plays they had supposedly learned in practice, he was competent in scribbling on the portable whiteboard. You’d think a more specialized skillset would be required to mobilize this team to victory, but they pretty much just did whatever and won. 

It was exciting to see the team starting off the season with a dub. The next tournament is tomorrow but I’m told it’s not listed on the app we were told to download, but it’ll be announced on another app that is still in development. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it to the next tournament, though. I need to check with my mortgage lender about refinancing my home so I can afford to attend. With any luck, I’ll see the coach at the next one, too! 

What a Playdate Bait + Switch Taught Me about My Village

It was 8:34 a.m. on a Sunday I had already called my mom with the news. 

The baby had a new eyelash. And was not a fan of green beans. Riveting headlines, as usual.

All of the major to-do items of the day had been accomplished. It was just the babe and I to pass the time. My husband John was building a private therapy practice and had taken our only car. 

Fortunately, I had a playdate on the books that day to which I could look forward. I had invited a neighbor mom over, which was more of an excuse to drink coffee and gab until our babies’ next nap. 

Only, when I opened my front door, I found instead my friend’s husband, whom I had met once, and their daughter. He sent his wife’s regrets that she was operating on a deadline. I suddenly regretted my decision not to wear a bra. In fairness, though, I was not counting on a playdate bait and switch. 

The awkwardness was palpable, but we managed to keep the conversation afloat while the kids stayed contained and entertained. He’s one of us, I thought. This dad has signed the invisible contract: we will support other parents in the trenches, and do no harm. Just as I was pouring myself another mug of coffee, the playdate proxy announced it was time for his daughter’s nap.

We bid adieu to the playdates from our front stoop. I turned with my baby in my arms to go back inside, and only then did I begin to wonder if my friend’s husband had indeed signed the contract, or at least read the fine print. Specifically the part about doing no harm.

Because the door handle would not turn. 

We only ever used the dead bolt, never the knob lock. Our children were not yet capable of reaching a doorknob, so I imagine the friend’s husband must have turned the knob lock on our front door as a force of habit. 

It was a balmy 37 degrees F in mid-winter Boston with turbulent winds and I was locked out of my condo with my baby who was still in diapers, and without my phone or my shoes, in addition to the great ignominy of being the neighborhood Erin Go Braless o’ the day. My husband was not due home for another seven hours, in therapy sessions with clients, unreachable by phone.

Should I follow the playdates and ask if we could temporarily crash at their place? My feelings were increasingly moving from irritated to homicidal. A of all, who calls an audible on playdate parent without any notice? B of all, WHO THE FUCK LOCKS THEIR HOSTS OUT OF THEIR OWN HOME? 

I walked the perimeter of our condo building and just as the stress tears were about to fall, our upstairs neighbor, Jimmy, who was all of 24 years-old and whose refrigerator contents were probably a six pack of Bud Light and a jar of mustard, called, “Hey! How are you folks doing?”

I explained our plight, our keylessness and shoelessness and carlessness. I did not mention our bralessness and fresh diaperlessness. 

In a stroke of unparalleled generosity, Jimmy lent me the keys to his car so that I could go to John’s office and retrieve the extra house key.

“See, that’s awesome,” I explained, “but I don’t have the car seat, and--”

Jimmy immediately offered to watch my baby during the time it would take me to get to my husband’s office, retrieve the house keys, and drive home. He insisted my baby would love to watch the New England Patriots with his girlfriend and him. 

To show my appreciation, I handed my offspring over to this relative stranger whose skills in CPR and generally keeping small humans alive were unknown to me. My child seemed psyched to be with anyone other than Boring Mom.

I drove as fast as I could without shoes to my husband’s office, whose whereabouts were slightly fuzzy as I had only driven him there once. This was in the Before Times, before smartphones could geolocate us in the jungle.

I arrived at his office building, a gauntlet of closed office doors, with no idea which was his. Ever the consummate professional, I ran stark-raving wild up and down the corridors, yelling his name at full volume.

Given that my husband had no prior warning of my arrival, when I appeared at his office door without shoes, our child, or an explanation of how I had driven there, he took it quite well - all things considered - and handed over the house keys accordingly. 

Upon my return to our condo, I found our neighbor, St. Jimmy, the newly canonized patron saint of hot mess mothers, upstairs with our child who had been converted into a Pats fan. I soon converted his diaper into a new and improved one. 

Perhaps the biggest conversion occurred in my view of my village. People wax on about the important role of community in raising a child, but sometimes a community can disappoint. Sometimes a community member who should know better locks you out in the cold. But from that same community, you can also receive the greatest compassion and charity in your moments of greatest need. 

I am now divorced from John with whom I co-parent our two teenage children. Last weekend I dropped off the family dog at John’s house and found that I was locked out, as I no longer had a key to his place. Moments later, my youngest son darted in stocking feet to open the door, reminding me that belonging is not a place, but a feeling that envelops, that welcomes you in from out of the cold.

The Lore of Ye Olde Cyber Monday

Gather round, children, if ye seek to know the true tale of how Cyber Monday came to be. Surely you have received missives from merchants hitherty thither, writ large in shouty caps. What of this Cyber Monday? And why this messaging of such urgency? Pray thee listen to the lore, for we will conjure the spirit of ye olden and golden days of the separation of our labors from home and hearth.

You see, our pocket robots were not always the tyrants you have known them to be! There was a time, beloveds, long before the metalsmiths made rings to debase your sleep debt, when your forebearers would venture home from their workbenches and be internet-less for entire stretches upon the Lord’s day. It may bemuse you, but I assure you, it was a splendid time to be alive. 

What’s that? How ever did we know how to cook? Why, we consulted the dusty, hardbound tomes full of recipes!

From whence did our intelligence come about hailing a carriage for hire, or to ply foodstuffs from hucksters who would deliver to our cottage door? And further, how did we navigate cobbled streets without so much as Mapquest directions from the scribe or block printer? Work emergencies? O’er week’s ending? It’s a mystery, fair ones, how we managed at all, even now….

And yet, it was our great delight to venture forth, after the ale and frivolity of Thanksgiving, to resume industry at our workbenches on Monday morn. We as the noble cobblers and scriveners and spurriers of our era, were verily eager to poach the High Speed Internet afforded by our proprietors and masters! Oh how those websites of the shoesmiths and milliners sparked and unfurled so fluidly, like the scrolls of the town criers! Caught in the world wide web’s thrall were we--simply mesmerized by the wares of the merchants! The skills of the online peddlers, what with their sterling promises that if we merely bought five pieces of crockery, we would receive one pot compliments of the potter. Imagine? To live so high on the hog. The expiry of those sales threatened action, post-haste, lest we tarry. 

Thus was Cyber Monday. 

What may escape ye, though, is the vernacular of “cyber.” For while it may seem an innocuous term, or even obsolete term by any stretch of your modern imagination, now, know this, Buckleshoe McGee: This word once carried a heft to it. It was an adjective seasoned with not only salt, but savory spices. Ay! It was even once a verb! Goodie Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale were well-aquainted with its implications. The Googleman can illuminate you, should you crave to know more. 

Although ye may no longer observe this high holiday, I pray ye mark with gratitude the omnipresence of Lightning Fast Interwebs of which your generation benefits and brain rots in equal parts. I encourage your support of our robust economy, children. I pray ye acquire a host of trinkets and other novelty items that will catch your fancy, this and every Cyber Monday in this brave new world!!