Hi, all. I'm going to tell you guys what happened late last year that really stunk. Coming into the New Year, we weren't actually all that happy. You see, you may remember me talking about my Lego Club - right? I kept saying that a HUGE competition was coming up, and that I was a bit nervous. Then all of the sudden I stopped. Well, now I'm going to tell you why. I didn't actually go to the competition. Actually, my brother Logan didn't either. Why didn't we you ask? Well, I'll tell you in a bit.
(Note - My mom just proofread this and told me to put this here. This is telling you guys that my mom has seen me holding in a bit of anger... She said that writing this whole thing out should relieve me of it - well, most of it anyway.)
In our Lego Club, there was always swearing and yelling coming from the coaches. Now, honestly, to me, that's not a big deal. Swears and yelling don't normally affect me too, too much. However, when the time that I am being sworn at is 4 hours straight, I start to break. This Lego Club was supposed to be fun, but really, no, it wasn't. My mom just kept telling us to shake it off. I really couldn't, though. I got more and more annoyed as the meetings went on. I wanted to swear back at the coaches and be disrespectful, (like a couple of the other kids) but each time, I prayed and held it back. The last meeting of the season was 6 hours long compared to the normal 4. You could imagine that I really started getting ticked. Around hour 5 is when I really had the urge to swear and yell back at those coaches, but instead, I kept my thoughts in my head.
After the meeting ended, I was angry. I felt that we shouldn't be treated this way. On the ride home I just pondered that, these guys are sinners. These guys are sinners, just like the rest of us. I tried to forgive them. I failed. Once I had got home, I broke. Literally. I cried. Now you guys know that I don't cry all that much, and that when I do, I don't like sharing it. But I cried. I said that if these coaches are what tech jobs are like, then I would completely stop tech, because I wouldn't want to be a part of it. Being a techy person, that means a lot. These coaches were saying that the stuff that I had worked on for 6 hours s*cked. Not just once either. They would ask me what the h*ll I was doing. Then I would say what I was doing. Then I'd get a response that told me that he doesn't care, and then they would yell about what I should do. Then they would show me what to do - and I can't say that they did it nicely.
After I had finally stopped crying, my mom asked me, "Do you want me to send an email telling the coaches to calm down a bit?" Of course, I said yes. My mom's email was very short, telling them that we were crying, and that we never cry. She asked them to calm down. (We're playing with toys! This is LEGOS we're talking about!) The response she got, the next night was saying that we had to attend a private meeting if we wanted to come to competition. Umm, no, we aren't coming to this meeting. Scratch that - heck no, we aren't coming to this meeting. When my mom told us, we were talking about how these two grown men were trying to get us to come to their house so that they could bully us more. We didn't actually know why on earth they wanted the meeting - maybe because we cried? We didn't know. So, my mom told him no, that we wouldn't have to attend a meeting, and that of course we would attend competition.
Then my mom got an email from the coach saying - okay, your boys can't come to competition. Then my mom said yes, we will attend competition! After some time, my dad saw this conversation going back and forth (he was away on business, and the coaches knew that). He chimed in, saying that he wasn't comfortable with two grown men trying to have a "meeting" with his sons and wife. Then the coach replied back saying that my mom was being aggressive and he wasn't comfortable around her. As you may have guessed, when my dad heard this, he freaked. When I heard this, I freaked. My mom was the one being, AGGRESSIVE? I don't think so.
This really concludes the story. That's it. We emailed FIRST, we did everything we could, and still, the bad guys won. My mom and dad kept telling me that justice would rise, and that it would be fixed. It never really was. To be honest, I was really hoping something would happen to them. Some kind of punishment. But it never did. When my mom finally told our friends about it, 50 to 80 people responded to my mom's post on her blog, saying that they were sorry that this happened. My mom had asked for them to also send an email to FIRST, telling them that we are good kids, and it wasn't our fault for getting kicked off. Nothing ever happened. The bad guys win, and it's not, "And they lived happily ever after." Nope. I was thinking about how If I got kicked off for swearing back, or doing something bad, then I would understand, and I would realize that I did something wrong. There would be a reason that I got kicked off. But this? This doesn't really comprehend.
So really, I forgave them. After all of this crap, I just want it to be done. I guess I've mentally forgave our friends, too. We always, and I mean always help our friends when they're in need. I was hoping that, you know, someone would actually help us this time.
Well, that's the story. Thanks for reading, and also make sure to visit Contagious And Courageous, my mom's blog. Also, I feel like I've forgiven the coaches, but because I'm still a bit angry as I'm writing this, I still have a bit of work to do.
P.S. A nice thing finally happened today from the cause of this. A friend of ours (who we only get to see about once a year) brought us a really nice candy bouquet, with a really sweet card, too. It said that they know what happened, and that it really, really stinks. This made our day. Thanks so much to them.
Hi Elijah! That's really too bad. It sounds like you really were looking forward to the competition. Don't worry about the coaches too much. Eventually, someone else will complain about them, and they'll be replaced. Even if they aren't, you can probably just find a different part of the LEGO club to participate in. Remember, something worse could have happened if you had gone to the meeting or competition. You might have just been protected from something.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing, you need to start posting more things on your blog! I checked it last Christmas and the first thing I saw was "A Thanksgiving to Remember"! :-)
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Brenden