I Blame This On You … AYSO … You Suck

Dear AYSO,

I normally don’t talk about my parent failures, unless they are of epic proportions.Most of the time I have my mini break-downs and hope that two Advil will help cure the ginormous headache that accompanies every parental disaster in The Guat household.

I took the Advil, but the two-mile run and the punching bag worked better. I think this disaster got to the punching-bag level because it involved sports.

For the second year in a row, I failed to sign-up my son for AYSO soccer season. Now normally something like this wouldn’t bother me, it’s not like we live and breathe soccer over here. But I did want to expose my son to the world of soccer and feel the World Cup hype the rest of the universe experiences.

But for some reason, everything on the road to AYSO registration went wrong, and thus parental failure was born.

I know AYSO is supposed to be a great organization and has this whole everybody plays, everybody is equal, open registration, let’s-have-fun mentality, but dude … I can’t even get on the team.

I can’t …

You lie AYSO!

For two years in a row the system has failed me. The first year I pleaded ignorance, I decided to sign up for a fall sport in the early summer. Apparently the end of June was not the time to sign up for a sport that happens in The Fall. Apparently this happens in Winter … Winter/Early Spring. Are you kidding me?

So because of this failure the only solution was The Wait List.

Let me fill you in on something called The Wait List … it’s a bunch of lies. It was fake hope they instilled in me along with generic emails that wished me luck next year. The Wait List is crap.

This year I decided I wouldn’t let them bamboozle me with this Wait List and sideline my kid. So Spring was here. I thought I got this … I got this! But no I didn’t.

I searched The Internet and went to their main page. I looked for login information and they had nothing but a smiling orange.

Lies … All Lies

Nothing about registration on the main page. No promotion. No advertising. No “Hey Click Here For Soccer Registration” Button. Nothing.

So I came back this month. May. We’re still in Spring, flowers blooming, right?

And again … I got nothing but …

The Orange

I thought this was cutting it close, summer is next month. I don’t see any registration information. I better click a few links and dig deeper. So I did. Families tab. Kids tab. Training tab. Volunteer tab. I felt like Columbo searching for clues. Then when I found a link with the “Find a Team Near You” tab I thought I got lucky.

Nope

Page Not Found.

I clicked on the Resources and Registration tab and ended up on the Page Not Found Page.

I kept clicking on link, after link, clicking and clicking and then thinking No Whammies, No Whammies, No Whammies.

Burn.

I don’t know if it’s a secret society where you just guess when registration is supposed to be, you have secret communications, or you have a secret handshake but after 33 minutes I finally breached the soccer Illuminati code. I was in! I found a separate link, that took me to another page, where I could fill out a form. I had a form! But apparently after I filled it out I was not done.

There was a Step 2.

Bring two printed copies to a designated park registration site. AYSO had one after Groundhog Day, and then the second one today. It was from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. I looked at my clock. It was 2:07 p.m.

Bastards.

I thought maybe if I print this out and rush to the park that’s twenty minutes away I can still catch them packing up. However the HP57 PhotoSmart Scanner and Printer In One was in on the conspiracy. Cartridge jam. Paper jam. Load Paper Alert! Even though there was a ream of Staples best 8 1/2 X 11 white sheets in the tray. After 23 minutes of trying to print two copies, I grabbed the one copy I miraculously printed and took off.

You lie AYSO, not everybody gets to play. Not. Open registration didn’t happen for me. We’re still on the waiting list, but I know that’s a whole He’s-Not-That-Into-You kind of situation where I’ll never get a call. I blame this on you AYSO, you suck.

But when I told my son the story he said … “well when’s hockey season?”

You lost a good one AYSO.

Sincerely,

The Guat

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