The calculus of a household crisis: 3 soccer players X 2 current game jerseys + practice jerseys + past game jerseys.  We are locked in one of those exponential sequences that results in some invading species wiping out all the native toads.  And we’re the native toads.

Does the management of soccer uniforms drive other families to the edge of insanity?

After all, this is just six shirts that we’re talking about. How hard can it be?

Suffice it to say, if I has uttered the above phrase to my wife at about 10am this past Saturday, a knife would have appeared in her hand.  My daughter was to have the her second real game with her new “academy” (read: more expensive) team, and the black “home” #12 jersey was nowhere to be found. Ri-ri’s anxiety alone probably would have sparked us to unload every drawer in the house, but it was worse than that.  The coach had lectured the parents, on a day my wife had done the soccer pickup, on the importance of wearing the correct uniform.

It upsets my wife to be in violation of directives.  Upsets her enough that I was ripping out drywall in pursuit of this stupid shirt. I dug through the lost and found bucket at the community pool, even though it was brimming with fragrant old shoes and week old rainwater. I called all the neighbors.  I called all the relatives.  I started with the phone book.

Madness.

Eventually a neighbor with soccer kids took pity and offered a older jersey of more or less the right size.  The make and model were close, but not *the* jersey.  The possibility that Ri-ri might not be allowed to play had me leaving to take Bubba to his game about three hours early. (Where I had to pay another parent $100 to *split* the cost of a new uniform so Bubba could keep his number on his new club team — uniform grief of another stripe.)

Do these rags cause heartache in your household? Please reassure me that we are not alone in our pain.