Chess -- The Last Bastion Has been Breached!

How's this for strange: Opie was talking to one his buddies over the weekend and heard that the guy was taking his son to a chess tournament.

That’s not the strange part.

The strange part is that the father is not allowed in the room where the tournament is taking place; he's not allowed to watch the tournament AT ALL. He has to sit out in some anteroom, waiting, until his son finishes the match and then comes back to tell him about it.

To be honest, since this is a friend from Opie's younger, wilder days, I assumed this was an individual ban. I suspected that the guy had been involved in some alcohol-induced shenanigans of questionable legality. I had a vision of a group of guys huddling around a chess match, passing around a bottle of Jack Daniels (or some classier chess-related beverage), yelling “Drink!” and doing shots every time some kid said “Check” or moved a pawn or whatever.

Which is a little unfair considering these guys have all grown up and matured but sometimes those old images are hard to shake...besides, if truth be told, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't take a lot of effort to convince Opie to partake in a chess drinking game, even now.

But then Opie be told me that it's not an individual ban; no parents are allowed in the chess room. None of them get to watch the tournament.

So I can only assume the prohibition  came into effect because parents were acting poorly during the matches.

Chess parents were acting up.

Chess parents!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun of chess or chess parents. Both my brothers play chess, several of my nieces and nephews play chess—one of their schools offers chess class as an elective. I have no problem with chess other than the fact I'm terrible at it. Chess is a game of logic and strategy; I'm a creature of emotion. I play chess and I think things like “Why isn’t the queen as important as the king? That seems unfair!” and then I worry about the cruelty of throwing pawn after pawn into the heat of a battle they can’t win.

Chess does not go well for me.

My point is I always considered chess one of the last bastions of civilized society. I imagined chess parents clapping lightly, saying thing like "well done" and nodding their supportive approval. I didn't realize they must run around like drunk Little League parents screaming “Take that idiot’s knight! Take it!” and “Go for check!” and “Kill that Grand Master wannabe!”

So now I need to know if this is common practice or if this is some weird Midwest aberration. Do all chess tournaments ban parents? Is there some other reason for this type of ban or has the world descended so far into madness that the last bastion of civilized society has been been breached?

Please, someone, restore my faith in humanity!

A Rose By Any Other Name

It’s Finish The Sentence Friday…well, to be honest, that was yesterday but I’ve been moving a little slowly this week—I haven’t even done the post for the award I got—so let’s just pretend I got finished on time (and be glad the link is still open!).  In any case, this week’s sentence is “When I was younger, I tried…”

Here’s my contribution:

When I was younger, I tried to get everyone to call me Kimberly instead of Kim…but I wasn’t assertive enough until I was much older.

Which most people probably think is silly…Kimberly, Kim what’s the difference? 

And that’s kind of a long story…a story that started when I was 5 years old and desperately wanted a cat. Unfortunately, the fact that I—and my whole family—are all wildly allergic to cat fur created an insurmountable hurdle.  I was devastated…and my grandmother decided to console me with the book One Kitten For Kim.  Except she clearly didn’t look at the book very closely:

 Notice anything odd about Kim? Anything that might upset a 5 year old Kim who desperately wanted a kitten?

Like the fact that the Kim in the book IS A BOY??!!

Which was a crushing blow to my self-identity….a boy’s name.  I had a BOY’S NAME.  Clearly, I was doomed to a life of androgyny and social exile.

Then, to make matters worse, I made one of the classic blunders: I confided in my brothers.

Now don’t get me wrong, my two brothers are good people.   They’re kind, compassionate, supportive…

At least they are NOW.

But at the time they were kids.  And BOY kids at that.  So when I said, in near hysteria, “Mom and Dad gave me a BOY’S name!”  They very helpfully explained that this was because when I was born Mom and Dad had really wanted a boy.

“Who’d want a girl?”  One of them asked.

“No one!”  The other affirmed.

(It is interesting to note that both of my brothers now maintain that this event never took place and turn the conversation to the time I told the younger one that we had found him under a bridge living with trolls…was everyone this mean to their siblings or were we just warped?)

Anyway, this revelation was enough to push me over into full blown hysterics.  I ran sobbing to my mom and started screaming about my boy’s name and how they didn’t want me and so on.

I think it goes without saying that I was a little high strung.

Luckily, my mom had one of those perfect parenting moments.  “I don’t know why you’re so upset,” she said.  “Your name is Kimberly not Kim.”

The fact that no one really called me Kimberly occurred to me but was just a new target for my obsessive personality.  It became a personal mission to get people to start calling me Kimberly instead.

It took 13 years.

Because when I was younger, I wasn’t that assertive.  I was a little too worried about people liking me, a little too worried about offending other people…so, I’d say “You know, I really prefer Kimberly but you know, whatever.”

It wasn’t until college that I got pushy about it, insisting on Kimberly instead of Kim.  And it worked.   Which was just fuel to the crazy fire...By the time I graduated and joined “the real world” I was flat out obnoxious about it, correcting people, pretending not to hear when I was hit with a “drive by Kimming”

A little over the top, I know.  But I couldn’t help it because, after all, Kim is a boy’s name.

 

For other childhood stories, click the link below: