one, two, tell me who are you? THE BEARS!

girlfriend is attending cheerleader camp at a tony private school. i balked for a few years, sending her to the YMCA until i was completely fed up with the lack of supervision, the lack of a program, and the lack of working transportation. (when she and her fellow campers were stuck on the fairfax county parkway one of the many days that the Y’s bus broke down, i pretty much had had it.) i have come to the conclusion that the private school’s camp isn’t that much more expensive than the Y (they feed them lunch and snacks! they actually do what they say they will do! (i.e., counselors actually teaching them cheers! supervises them! keeps them from killing each other!)), and considering it is a bit of a higher quality program, i am okay with that. (note that girlfriend is not attending camp all summer, which helps in balancing costs around here.)

the best part, of course, is that BC’s best friend in the whole entire universe is also attending with her. she will also attend girl scout sleepaway camp with her later this month. this is incredibly cool, as these girls live in separate towns and don’t actually see each other much each year.

so yesterday, i dropped my girl off, sunscreen and all, to cheering camp. i should point out that i was one of the girls who threw items at the cheerleaders. i sneered in their general direction. in short, i was not a cheering fan, in spite of the fact that my dad was on the pep squad when he was a young man about town. [insert vision of will ferrell here.]

when i picked her up at day’s end, she was a little annoyed. all of the girls, save for her buddy, knew each other already. some attended the private school during the school year. and they were… wait for it…stuck up.

no? cheerleaders at a private school…stuck up? no way.

[snerk]

i gave her the talk. you all know the one: don’t worry about any of the other girls. do what you went there to do: learn to cheer. have fun doing that. if the girls continue to be jerks, ignore them unless they’re hurting you (in which case, involve the counselors.) etc. the same self-talk i did when those men weren’t too happy about my presence in the weight room. she was still a little nervous about going today.

fast forward to pickup time today. how was your day, i asked, nervous about the answer.

mama, she said: i was a FLYER!

come again?

for those of us who spent little time with those popular, pert ladies in our high schools, a flyer is the person who gets thrown in the air.

i was a little scared because if someone dropped me, well, that would have hurt. but they didn’t! and there was one girl who is so big, the counselors couldn’t hardly throw her, but not me!

i guess that means today was a better day, huh?