Ticked Off Tuesday: A Douchebag Dad

Last year, our Y sponsored a "Healthy Kids" Day. We went because it was free and the weather was crappy. The kids had a great time - there was an obstacle course and a climbing wall and a dance party. Also, there was hardly anyone there. The kids went around and around the obstacle course and the boys were total stars on the dance floor.

I don't know who took over media relations for the Y, but whoever it was did a much better job promoting this year's event. It was packed. Which made it kind of suck.

We had to wait in a huge line for the obstacle course. The group in front of us, which doubled in size while we waited, was an assortment of parents and kids. Two of the boys wrestled each other, which the parents ignored.

During the wrestling, they knocked into Ironflower. I didn't see it, distracted by the mom behind us, whose daughter had gone to preschool with Lovebug and whose name I can never remember until five hours after I see her (FYI, yes, I remember it now).

Instead of apologizing, one of them bumped her again. Hot Guy looked at the Dad, who said, "He's a hockey player, that's what he does." For real. No apology. Hot Guy exhibited massive self-control and did not demand an apology, thereby avoiding a fight in the middle of the Y.

I mean, I suppose the guy thought that explaining that his son was a hockey player was an apology.

So, maybe, if I ran over him with my car, I could tell him that I'm a racecar driver? Or maybe I should have let Hot Guy punch him, and then explained that Hot Guy is a boxer?

And we wonder why high school athletes can turn out to be entitled assholes. I mean, this kid was no more than 8 and he was already being trained that other people don't count. When Hot Guy updated me on the whole situation, it was all I could do not to start yelling at the Dad myself. Lovebug has friends who play hockey and their parents would NEVER let them knock into someone else without apologizing, unless they were ACTUALLY playing hockey at that moment.

Of course, I shouldn't be surprised - the dad was wearing basketball shorts, despite the fact that it was 36 degrees outside. His sweatshirt and baseball cap matched. He never spoke to his daughter. He might as well have had a sign saying "Douchebag" around his neck.

If I could, I would let him know that many hockey players are perfectly polite people off the ice. That they don't go around checking people, especially people who are just standing there minding their own business. That the hockey players I knew in college - some of whom won medals in the Olympics and some of whom played professionally - did things like apologize when they bumped into you.

I have never dealt with a parent like Douchebag Dad before. Even when I taught in schools where the  parents didn't flinch when you told them their kid had called you a bitch or threatened another student, they still made their kids apologize. Even when I had parents who were totally drunk or high, they would make their kids apologize for knocking into other people. Even at schools where the kids told me their parents would sue me for making them miss recess, I never saw a parent just let their kid act like that toward other kids.

GRRRRR.