Spotlight on the News

Happy Monday - it's been one exciting week news wise, hasn't it?  45 sure keeps the news cycle hopping, doesn't he, whether it's things he tweets and things he doesn't.  I'm not getting political here, just stating facts.

This is a cute little story, that popped into my head while watching the talking heads yesterday morning.  People get riled up about all sorts of issues and the dismantling of a girl's soccer team is so much better than the rhetoric that is being flung across the oceans by two men who should know better.  

Spotlight on the News

Casey was a news junkie and loved her job as an op ed writer on her local paper.  It might not be the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times, but The Gazette reached the homes of everyone in her county and she got to use the ‘bully pulpit’ to express her opinions. She was an opinionated woman – her family and friends were used to Casey vocalizing her opinions, whether asked for or not.  When she took hold of an issue, she was like a dog with a bone and when the local school board wanted to do away with the girl’s soccer program, she was up in arms and the fight was on.  Not only were school board meetings riotous affairs, but her family life was in turmoil too.

John knew his wife and for the most part supported her and her opinions.  It didn’t always make him the most popular member of the community but allowed Casey her head.  Until now. 

John was the chairman of the local school board and thus seconded the motion that the girl’s soccer team be disbanded.  It wasn’t a hard decision.  The program was not supporting itself, never had and it was becoming a financial drain on the other sports programs.  Participation was at an all-time low and it seemed the wisest decision.

Casey didn’t agree.  She based her opinion on feminism, not on reality. To her, it didn’t matter they barely had enough participants to field a team, to her it was why not cut one of the male programs – i.e., the boy’s track team that was having many of the same problems as the girl’s soccer team.  The difference was that the boy’s soccer had a major sponsor that absorbed the financial loss.  All efforts to attract a major sponsor for the girl’s soccer team failed. 

The situation created a great deal of discord at home.  When Casey wrote a blistering op-ed piece in the paper that was picked up and spread across the state, it brought recognition to Middleton, along with the accompany frenzy that anything like this did.  The whole town was disrupted and John and Casey, being on opposing sides of this decision, were the focus of the frenzy.

Casey was getting kudos from not only her publisher because the paper had increased its subscription rate, but by the mothers of the players and other groups across the state that found themselves in the same situations.  Girl’s sports programs were just not considered important enough to fund with the limited budgets that were being offered. Unfortunately for John, he was getting flack from all sides – not only his employer, but from the town council as well, wondering why he couldn’t control his own wife.  He asked Casey if she could tamp down the rhetoric and accept the decision to disband the girl’s soccer team. 

She was vehement and fueled with the support she was receiving from outside sources, continued her columns and even began taking speaking engagements offered by Rotary and Kiwanis clubs in the neighboring towns. 

John, not being able to take any more, offered Casey a choice – either back down or he would have to take action.  He tried reasoning with Casey, explaining that even if he backed down and called for another vote and abstained, the program would still be disbanded. 

“You do what you have to do, John and I will do the same.”

Several days later, John came home to a house full of people with pads and cameras. He’d had an awful day at work and he wanted to sit back, relax and forget about the chaos that had been surrounding them for far too long.  Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen.  He lost his cool and began telling them to leave.  Casey objected, telling him they were almost finished.

“They’re finished now Casey, and I want them out of the house,” and he stood at the door until the last one was ushered out.

“That was embarrassing.”

“Not nearly as embarrassing as it would be if they’d stayed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m doing something I should have done a while back.  I want our lives to get back to normal and all this hoopla seems to be increasing instead of decreasing.  I’ve spoken my piece and it hasn’t mattered.  So I’m going to use a tried and true method when words fail. “

“John, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then let me explain, without words.”  He pulled her over to the couch and turned her over his knee.  He flipped up her dress and began to pummel her bottom with as much force as he could muster.  The aggravations of the last couple of months were being taken out on Casey’s backside. No matter how much she squirmed and carried on, John was determined to end this once and for all.  He managed to wedge her undies up so that her bare arse was feeling the full force of his hand. Casey finally stopped raising a fuss and accepted what was happening, and still, the spanks didn’t stop.  It wasn’t until John didn't think his hand could deliver another spank – his hand was burning and almost as red as Casey’s bottom.

“There, I’m finished. I’ve had my say.  Our life gets back to normal now and I don’t want to hear or read another word about the girl’s soccer team.  Do you understand?”

She shook her head yes.  She had to admit John and her family had put up with a lot over the last couple of weeks.  She’d had her fifteen minutes of fame, or so she thought.

The following day, there on the front page of her very own paper, was a picture of her across John’s lap getting her bottom spanked.  The picture was courtesy of an AP photographer who had been ushered out of the house the preceding afternoon.  The caption read “Taking One For the Team.”

If only the world problems could be solved this easily.  See you later for more Aimless Ramblings.