The Soccer Mom Glare

We had our first writer's group meeting this past Saturday, we being myself along with several fellow writers who became friends over the course of completing our MFAs. Along with a handful of friends from retreats, online workshops and so on, these are the people I would trust most to tell me a story is awful along with suggestions on how to fix it. It'd been a few weeks since our last class so it was a great opportunity to catch up, work out the mechanics of this thing going forward, listen to some people who will remain nameless (Fred and Deb) rub in how Awesome Scrivener on the Mac is and to share some writing. That and as one of my cohorts in this project (Fred) put it, eat some bread -- we were at The Bread Company after all.

So I sat at our nook in the back while everyone went to order, the lines were long and the place was packed with tween and teen soccer players (I have to think there was some sort of tournament taking place near by), when a woman and her Puma-shoed, Umbro-shorted child approached our table (where I was sitting) and tried to sit down.

Soccer Mom: "Honey, you sit there and I'll get our drinks."

Me: "Excuse me, people are sitting there."

I say this as I point to the notebooks and papers occupying the empty seats and table space.

Soccer Player: "Mom! He won't let me sit there."

Soccer Mom: "Who? What?"

She shouted this from around the corner as the soccer player stood pointing at me. When she finally made her way back to her child, I told her that people were already sitting in those seats. I said this in a very pleasant, cordial way. Heck, I think I even apologized. Then she grabbed her child by the back of the jersey and huffed. Then she flashed me the most heinous of evil eye glares that I've ever experienced and I've been on the wrong end of glares (other stories for another day).

Soccer Mom: "Fine, we'll just sit somewhere else."

And they stormed off to a table that didn't exist, like I said the place was packed. Then everyone ate their respective bread products (I enjoyed the Sierra Turkey sandwich which comes on a tasty asiago bread) and we got down to the business of reading, writing and general wordsmithery.

I'm facilitating the next session (insert evil laugh here) and it's the first in which we're getting down to hardcore workshopping. And it looks like we're going to call another member's house (Deb) basecamp for the upcoming go-around. So no more evil glares, yea! Well, at least none from people I don't know (people I know can give me the stink eye all they want, I probably deserve it more times than not).