CHEER

So I would speculate that cheerleading is a primarily American phenomenon. I mean, I realize there are cheerleaders at some European rugby games, and I know I've seen pictures of them at Australian rugby games, but really, it's an American thang, right? Gotta be. Only in places like Texas, Kentucky, Florida and Louisiana (to name a few), it's like a sport, an exclusive club, a religion. I feel like I know the heart of it inside and out, as I was one of the many girls growing up in a cheerleader-crazed area who DIDN'T try out, ever, and always wished I had been one. So sad. Did Dallas poison me?

Anyway, I was appalled and amused, much like witnessing a train wreck, when I left the playground last night and saw about 12 overweight, 10-year-old British girls, all wearing blue shorts with white CHEER written on their bums, waving around white pom poms and trying to follow the lead of some idiotic (no doubt British) tiny white person flailing her own arms to "Whoomp There It Is." I mean, I know what I'm talking about here. I really do. I may not know much about decorating, gardening or cooking, but I swear, I've got the cheerleading/dance team thing down.

I was even tempted to go over and show them what's what. But I'm so pregnant it would have just been comical. [Hell, even better. I really should have done it then, only I didn't have the video camera.] Even in my size 10/12 (pre-pregnancy, of course) state, I think I could have shown those girls a thing or two, though admittedly it could have been a staircase routine to "Domino" or some sort of streamerless streamer routine. Since they already had the poms, come to think of it, I'm sure I could have come up with a very Susan Mitchell-esque pom routine. Hmm.

So I lost my chance to find my niche here. Oh, heaven forbid.

And yet ... this is my life.