The Bleacher Scrollers
A tale of two dads, two phones, and a wrestling practice that will never, ever end.
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A tale of two dads, two phones, and a wrestling practice that will never, ever end.
↓ scroll down ↓
They arrive at the same time. They always arrive at the same time. The parking lot smells like cold air and questionable life choices. One carries a coffee that stopped being hot twenty minutes ago. The other forgot his, and that fact will haunt him for the next ninety minutes.
They nod at each other — the universal dad greeting that communicates everything and nothing simultaneously — and claim their spots on the bleachers. Third row. Same as last Tuesday. Same as every Tuesday since September.
The children run onto the mats. The phones come out. The scrolling begins.
Dad 1 is three layers deep into a Reddit thread about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. He started on a wrestling technique video. He does not remember the journey that brought him here, but he has strong opinions about encased meats now.
Dad 2 is on his fourth consecutive reel of a guy restoring a cast iron skillet. He doesn't own a cast iron skillet. He's thinking about buying one. He won't. But for these precious minutes, he is a cast iron enthusiast.
On the mat, a child executes a textbook double-leg takedown. It is beautiful. It is technically perfect. Neither dad sees it.
A glance at the clock. Surely it's been an hour. It has been twenty-six minutes. Time moves differently in a wrestling gym. Scientists should study this. The fluorescent lights hum at a frequency specifically designed to dissolve the human will to live.
Dad 1 has moved on to pricing out a shed he doesn't need on a property he doesn't have room for. Dad 2 found an article titled "17 Signs Your Sourdough Starter Is Dead" and is reading it with the intensity of a surgeon reviewing an MRI.
Neither man has made sourdough bread. Neither man will make sourdough bread.
It happens. The moment every wrestling parent lives for. A kid hits a pancake so clean the coach actually claps. The gym erupts — well, the three parents who were watching erupt. The kid looks up at the bleachers, beaming, searching for dad's face.
Dad 1 is watching a video of a raccoon opening a door. Dad 2 is in a group chat arguing about whether the Chiefs got robbed.
The kid's smile fades by exactly 14%. Not enough for anyone to notice. Except the other kid's mom, who saw the whole thing and is absolutely going to bring it up in a passive-aggressive way later.
(He did not see.)
The coach blows the whistle. Practice is over. Both dads look up simultaneously, like meerkats sensing a predator — except the predator is freedom and they are ready to embrace it.
They gather children. They gather wrestling shoes that somehow ended up forty feet from where practice happened. They gather the crushed water bottle that was full ninety minutes ago and is now a modern art installation.
They walk to the parking lot. They are both still on their phones.
They will both be there fifteen minutes early. They will both immediately pull out their phones. The cycle is eternal. The bleachers remember everything.