As I mentioned earlier, last Saturday was our neighborhood yard sale. The first year we participated, I was 6 months pregnant and decided at the end of the day that all proceeds should go toward me eating a large seafood dinner at a reasonably expensive restaurant and to be honest, I can’t even remember what we did with last years take. So this year in an attempt to be more financially responsible we decided that the money should have a purpose. We decided to put it all into making our backyard more fun.

This basically entails putting up lattice so that Em can no longer hang out with the spiders under the deck, and D’s one wish, a soccer goal” . The yard sale was a success even though we just missed getting drenched. Sunday morning we slept in, ate a big breakfast and readied the kids for our all too frequent family trip to Target. “Surely they would have a soccer goal we naively thought. A hunt through the entire “Super T” and all they had was a little electronic Fisher Price goal, not what D had in mind. After a regrouping we headed to Dick’s. Only men really appreciate the name of this place. Anyway, Dick’s had a smattering of regulation size goals, but nothing “backyard appropriate”.

It was at this time that I remembered the second-hand sporting goods place in Cary (hi Jennifer). I called ahead and “yes”, the frat boy on the phone proclaimed, they did have nice smallish soccer goals for a reasonable price, “about 4 feet high” he said. We decided to head right there and have lunch near by. Em fell out on the way across town so I sat in the car while D and At-man went in to claim their prize, only to see them walking out of the store 10 minutes later empty handed. The goal was actually 2 feet high, apparently someone had too much fun at the previous nights “kegger” to correctly read the package. No big deal, we were actually right up the street from one of the only remaining Toys R Us’s in the state. No way they wouldn’t have a suitable soccer goal. We went in and found an exact replica of the first one we had found at Target, only this one was “ESPN” brand. Damn! How hard could it possibly be to find a goal small enough for the yard but big enough for both kids and adults to play on? D left me at Toys R Us with Em and At-man to run next door to an actual “Soccer” store, but, you guessed it, no dice. While he was there I began to look around at the other potential sporting options and there, in the middle of the baseball isle, was a lone soccer goal of the exact size and requirements D had his heart set on, and for only 20 bucks! It may only last the summer, but hey, at least we have a soccer goal we can all play with.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, it has me a bit pissed off. I am pissed that it took me an entire Sunday to find a soccer goal, but had we been hunting for an X Box, that would have only taken 10 minutes from our house to any number of stores that carry them. How the hell are we supposed to raise our children to grow up healthy and active if we can’t even find the equipment to entice them to get their asses off the couch? No wonder more kids look like soccer balls than can actually kick a soccer ball, or is it just me?