A pulsing light startles you as you pack another underwhelming school lunch into a backpack. A voice calls out, soft but urgent: “It’s time for The Child to play a Youth Sport.” In the local village, rumors are swirling. The Child’s Best Friend wants to play too. It seems that Youth Sports Registration will open soon, but no one knows where, when, or how.
Convince Tina, the villager with four kids, to send you the registration email from last season that she’s pretty sure is still in her inbox somewhere.
Buried deep in a quadruple-forwarded email with mysterious origins lies a suspiciously long link. The URL is unresponsive on mobile devices; you must switch to your Work Laptop. The link takes you to the Youth Sports Registration Website, which is actually just an embedded PDF. You zoom 200 percent to read the text, which states—in cursive, light green font—that registration doesn’t open for another three weeks.
Find an inn and rest until registration opens.
After emerging from a dreamless slumber, an email announces that registration is now open… but will close in five minutes.
Get your Work Laptop.
You have completed multiple pages of required information about The Child, including their uniform size, school address, and dentist’s Instagram handle. There are fifteen seconds left to upload a recent photo of The Child, which is on your Phone, not your Work Laptop.
Use your Phone to email a recent photo of The Child to your work email… fast!
Miraculously, you receive an email confirming your Child’s registration. But there’s an unexpected twist—you mistakenly signed up to coach a team. You send a frantic note to the league explaining the error. In a rare moment of clarity and professionalism, someone from the league responds immediately and tells you that it is impossible to retract a coaching commitment.
Find an inn where you can have a panic attack.
League Director Chris is an all-knowing administrator who has been running Youth Sport for millennia. He cryptically suggests that he can tell you many valuable tales of triumph and woe to guide you during the season. He emails all coaches several megabytes of attachments containing information on practice schedules, points of contact from years past, Youth Sports rules, and how to order uniforms. As soon as you download the last attachment, the email slowly vanishes from your inbox. You never hear from League Director Chris again.
A man named Jesse sends you a text message from his iCloud email address. He has keys to the equipment shed, which he’s hidden in the cupholder of an Adirondack chair on his front porch. You look up his address, and it turns out he lives next door to you.
Find the keys and/or grapple with the fact that you don’t even know your own neighbor. Has our anti-community culture turned you into an asshole?
You approach the Youth Sports Snack Shack looking for the meeting, but all you find is an older lady who is asleep and snoring loudly. You throw a pebble in her direction. Coaches meeting and draft starts in five minutes. You best hurry along to the Youth Sports draft shrine. Look for Keith.
You ask her if League Director Chris will be there. She looks stunned. League Director Chris died 150 years ago. He was on a train delivering leather-bound rosters and rule books to team members across the county when there was a fatal derailment.
You ask to purchase some Doritos and pigeon eggs. But the lady has resumed snoring.
To you who set forth in this shrine… I am Keith, father of Presley and Jack. I am a humble realtor who was chosen to run this draft against my will. I offer this trial.
You open the treasure chest, releasing dozens of children’s names. If you claim both Theo D. and Finn K., you will be accused of stacking your team. If you select a set of twins, you are instantly killed. You must get The Child and The Child’s Best Friend to be on the same team. Instead, your team includes five full-blown teenagers, two toddlers, and Theo D.’s labradoodle, Lulu.
You find out that The Child’s Best Friend’s parents perished while trying to upload a photo to the portal, so they are unable to participate this season.
KEITH: I must thank you. Because of you, the children and pets of our community are ranked according to their inherent value as human beings and pets. You live in one of those historic bungalows in East Hyrule, right? I just sold a castle over there for 1,500 rupees over asking. If you are ever interested in selling or buying, please let me know.
Let Keith know.
You create a team WhatsApp group, which causes your phone to shake violently and release a giant purple cloud. When it clears, you find yourself surrounded by four mobilins!
Defeat the group of moblins.
It’s the very first practice! Many players don’t show up, because they got the field number mixed up and ended up driving into a bottomless pit. Your own Child sprained their ankle trying to walk in the Men’s XXL uniform you accidentally ordered and will not be on the team this season. Everyone else just plain forgot to show up.
