Heavy Medal

This mean-a$$ hateful old woman who was volunteering at the registration/awards table at Chunk's track meet yesterday unwisely crossed my path after I was hot, tired, and feeling especially maternal.  And I was nice.  Chunk had won his first event and gone down and gotten his medal for it earlier.  Towards the end of the meet, he got 2nd in his 2nd event and was so excited that he ran to their table and got in line for his next medal.

While we were standing there, DragonLady tells everyone she is only a volunteer, she doesn't have the results yet, please be patient, we're doing the best we can - then punctuates her message with: "if you don't like the way I do things why don't you volunteer and I can go relax." Everyone stood there stunned, because no one was being particularly rude or anything to her to warrant such an outburst.  I looked at MyPoolBoy with a big-eyed expression of disbelief to signal to him that I was tolerating her quite well, but there was a big knot at the end of my rope that I think was tied in the dark by an ADD 1st year Bobcat Cub Scout who had lost a couple of fingers in a farm-implement accident and couldn't find his glasses, so this particular knot's chances of holding me back much longer were slim.

Chunk stepped up to the table and told her he had finished 2nd in his event.  She said she didn't have the results yet, so he obediently stepped back out of the way and let the next person in line go.  Basically at this point, the only people at the table were folks waiting for medals for THAT event.  So a parent went to the coaches' tent and got the results. Chunk and one of his friends tried to be helpful and organized 2 lines, one for each volunteer.  And then he stupidly got into DragonLady's line.  

When the parent came back with the results, DragonLady started in again.  "Everyone step back I will do this in order you just have to wait for me to call your name."  Everyone did.  She started calling names of kids on the list by age group.  Most of the younger kids had already gone home, and we started realizing that she was just talking to the air by doing it this way, but she persisted.

Finally she got to Chunk's age group, and she called out the 1st place kid.  Then she called out the 3rd place kid (not there), and Chunk stepped up and told her he had gotten 2nd place.  Someone had put a check by his name that he had already received his medal (the check was probably supposed to be by the 3rd place kid, since he wasn't there), and Chunk told her no, he had been standing there waiting on the results the whole time (and he was nice and polite - I was very proud of him!).  She argued back that he already had it, he had a check by his name, and he replied that he got a medal for his 1st event but that he had been standing back and waiting for the results like she told him to for this medal.  She then THREW a medal across the table at him and said "I'm not going to argue with you, just take it."

wow.  Congratulations on your achievement, right?

And then the inevitable happened.  The knot slipped.  It must've been obvious - MyPoolBoy and Chunk started gathering their stuff and heading toward the gate cuz they knew the shi+storm was about to start.  MyPoolBoy lingered on the sidewalk at the exit gate and watched the trainwreck in helpless horror as I quietly (it's NEVER good when I'm quiet) stepped up to the table and said, "Excuse me, ma'am."

MyPoolBoy said something to the effect of "oh, crap, here it comes" and everyone around the table got dead silent.

I had the floor.

I nicely (stop laughing - I really was nice) told her that she didn't need to talk to the kids that way - he had been standing there patiently waiting like she told him to, and while I appreciated the fact that she was a volunteer, we were ALL hot and tired, but these kids are excited about these medals and she shouldn't just throw it at them and treat them that way.  She started to reply back and I cut her off with "Really honey, just rethink the way you speak to people."  And then I walked off.

Over in his little corner of eternal mortification, MyPoolBoy just shook his head and a lady next to him said, "Don't sweat it.  She's just saying what all the rest of us are thinking."

THANK GOD all I said was what EVERYONE ELSE was thinking.  Cuz if I had said what I was thinking, this would've played out a whole lot differently.