One More Day

This past Sunday, I headed to the rink reluctantly. I knew, thanks to my monitoring duties, that I would get in very little ice time. Little did I know that that ice time would be less than I expected and that I would lose something. There is only one day remaining to the Sunday morning torture I call Ice Monitoring. I have announced that I will NOT be returning. And this time I mean it. No amount of begging will convince me to return. I have not skated these past Sundays and since I am the skater and not my non-existing child, it bothers me. That being said, after what seemed like forever, I got on the ice. I was immediately interrupted because the music wasn't working correctly. I should mention that I don't know how to work the music because I do my program so infrequently. Off the ice I go to walk to the office and ask if someone can come fix the music. While heading back to the ice, I was interrupted for some ice monitoring duty; I don't remember what it was. Back on the ice. Two laps around the rink and I started my first Move in the Field. And was interrupted when someone was breaking the rules. I was handed a copy of the rules which I had to deliver to the rule-breaker. I started my moves again and got half way down the ice when a little child decided that was the perfect place to do a spin. She was in lesson. I asked the coach if she could possibly move her student out of the track. And started my moves again. I was successful in doing half of one move and was on the ice a total of six minutes. Yes, six minutes. Out came the Zamboni. While preparing for the second session, I watched a mother and her two daughters prepare to get on the ice (the kids, not the mom). I had never seen these three people before and waited for the mom to ask someone "who do I pay?" She never did, but whisked her children onto the ice with their coach, who I also had never seen before. The rule for this skating club is the same as the rule for the rink and 99% of all other rinks and clubs: YOU PAY FIRST. So, since my co-monitors had not seen them enter, I calmly went up to the mother and told her she had to pay first. She told me she'd do it when she got around to it. Usually, I'm not that much of a bitch, but, I had only six minutes on the ice and was quite pissed off. I said to her, "I'm the ice monitor and I can throw your kids off the ice immediately if you don't pay right now." I got "the look". As an African-American woman, I get "the look" a lot. What's "the look"? It's the look that says, "who the hell do you think you are? Don't you just work here? I don't have to listen to you." I got on the ice and skated towards one of her daughters. She went go pay. Unfortunately, the coach decided that the 6 or 7 year old child should skate on the end of the rink where the high test skaters do their jump patterns. I asked the coach to kindly move to keep the kid safe. She rolled her eyes at me and said, "Whatever." This coach is on staff at the rink. I know her boss; we are friends. Mistake. BIG mistake. Not only did this chuck-wagon piss me off, but she succeeded (as did the mother of the two skaters) to piss off the other two monitors and an officer for the skating club. Good luck getting anything signed by the skating club now. But wait, there's more! For some unknown reason, everyone and their cousin had to do their program. And we have music hogs. You know, those people who start their programs over and over and never actually finish skating them. As a result, I ended up playing the music for the second session and not skating at all. All of this hell ends next week. I am counting the hours until I say "GOOD BYE" to monitoring. I will show up for the end of season party because I want someone to say thank you to me. On a totally different note: there is a summer program at Gallaudet University. It's an intensive 2 week program in ASL. I was evaluated for the program this morning and ranked into the Advanced class!!! I don't know how to add photos, but if I did, you'd see me dancing!! Makes up for Sunday.