Dissed by the Sea Gals? Well…no.

Last night, we had a little “incident” here at UltimateCheerleaders.com. It’s over now, but some of you may have logged on during the drama and, as a person who hates to be left hanging, I feel it’s important to provide a little closure. Those of you who know “how I am” know that I tend to go on and on, so I’m afraid this is going to take a while. Get a cup of coffee or a Snapple or whatever and get comfortable.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, keep it moving. There’s nothing to see here.
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Last night, around 7:30, I was in a crappy mood, because I’d completely forgotten about Sea Gal finals, and tuned in almost two hours late. At the same time, I was grumpy because I was trying to finish up a project for work today, and it’s just not fun working for The Man during one’s personal time. So I had one eyeball on the Sea Gal finals, and one eyeball on my project, and when I heard something that translated roughly into “UltimateCheerleaders.com is, like, the creepiest website ever,” I sat right up and took notice.

It was a very middle school moment: I thought I heard somebody say that she heard somebody else say something bad about this website. Instead of being rational about it, and considering the source of the information, I bought into it hook, line, and sinker. You know how it is when you get an idea in your head, and there’s no one around to tell you to snap out of it, and you just work yourself up into a real mad-on for whoever done you wrong?

It was like that.

Basically, this year, sisters Jessica and Krystal were in Sea Gal finals together. And if you’ve been with us for a while, you know I’m all “Hooray for sisters!” I just think it’s cool when you can share a rare opportunity like this with a close member of your family. So I was watching the webcast when the host said something about Jessica/Krystal mentioning some creepy website that talks about all the sisters who’ve cheered together in the NFL.

(For the record, I do think J and K are the first pair of relatives to cheer for the Sea Gals, either separately or together. I could be wrong about that, but I’ve never heard otherwise.)

For those who may not be aware, we have a sisters/twins/relatives page on our site. It was my idea. I did the research. I do the updates. That page is my baby. It is mineminemineminemine, and the word “creepy” brought out all of my mama bear instincts.

My first mistake was assuming they were talking about UC. I will fully admit to a little professional narcissism here. Whenever I hear anything about a website about pro cheerleaders, I immediately assume they’re talking about us.

My second mistake was forgetting everything I know about cheerleaders. I’ve met a lot of pro cheerleaders through this site. And none of them have been mean and nasty like that. While I’m sure it’s possible to be truly evil and be a pro cheerleader, it’s probably very difficult. Not does the Director bend over backwards to weed out that kind of thing at auditions, but the nature of the position requires you to be a pretty decent human being. And finally, outside of the mafia, foreign drug cartels, and the entertainment industry, evil isn’t much of a team activity.

My third mistake was overlooking the fact that I know good and well that there are a lot of creepy pro cheer fans out there. Well, maybe not a LOT, but I’ve run across all kinds of weird cheer-related shizzle over the past years. I know it exists. I know there are sites with all manner of trashy things to say, sites that dig into and publish cheerleaders’ personal information and photos, sites for people with creepy cheerleader fetishes. There’s a healthy amount of eeeeeyyyyyyew out there.

But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking “Somebody out there is talking smack about us, I have no way of proving what was actually said, no way of addressing it, no way to defend myself, and I’m royally pissed off.” Next thing I know, I’m firing off a post about the unfairness of it all.

We’re not about bashing people on this site. We’re about the opposite of that. I wasn’t planning to post anything about this. But I also knew that posting about it was the only way I was going to (a) get any sleep that night, and (b) get any clarity on the issue. Not that I expected to hear from any of the people directly involved, but I wanted to know if we have somehow developed a rep for creepiness. If that’s the case, I need to know about it. STAT. (Anyone know what STAT means? I don’t. just like to say it.)

That word just keep going around and around in my head. Creepycreepycreepycreepy.

I posted and deleted. Posted again. Deleted it again. Posted it, edited it, edited it some more, watered it down, and deleted it again. Finally, I posted it and left it. It wasn’t a furious, threatening, ranty, obnoxious post (I don’t think so, anyway), but it was clearly a “what the HELL is going on here???” post. I emailed James to let him know I’ve completely lost my sense of perspective and I needed him to read it and take it down if he thought I was out of line. I might have said something to him along the lines of “The Sea Gals are dead to me. As God is my Witness, I will never post another thing about them on this website. EVER.”

(Hey, I’m female, ok? I have the Drama Gene just like everyone else with two X chromosomes.)

Then I shut down my computer for the night and took a few doses of televised prozac, in the form of back-to-back episodes of “Too Cute” on Animal Planet.

By the time I hit the sack last night, I wasn’t angry anymore. Just sad. I really thought we were doing a good thing here. It sucks to be so misunderstood. (Helllooooo “victim” mode.)

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was – I’m not even kidding – “Ooooh! Let me go check and see who made Sea Gals!”

And then I remembered I had resolved to shun the Sea Gals until The Very End of Time.

So much for seeing things differently after a good night’s sleep.

Got up. Got dressed. Went to work. Considered looking into therapy for all of this.

Come lunch time, I checked my email. First message was from James. He had taken my post down, he said. He understood where I was coming from, but pointed out that we really don’t need the drama. And he is right. That’s not how we handle things here. It’s not our style. Over the past 9 years (today is our 9 year anniversary – huzzah!) we have had a very small number of incidents with particular individuals who were cold, rude, offensive, or downright crazy. When that kind of thing happens, we don’t engage. We just move on. This is a hobby. We do this for fun. Anything that makes it NOT FUN is a waste of our time.

The next email I received was from Sister Jessica. Ha. That makes her sound like a nun. Sister Jessica of Our Lad y of Perpetual Cheer. Heh heh. But what I mean is Jessica of the “sisters Jessica and Krystal” who unwittingly lit the match on my temper last night.

I didn’t read her email. I thought to myself “No. We are not friends anymore. I don’t care to hear anything you have to say.”

And then I thought well technically, we’ve never actually met. Never had any contact whatsoever. You can’t really Unfriend someone you never Friended in the first place. Now, if we’d ever met and exhanged brownie recipes or Xmas gifts or whatever, then this would be a legit Girlfriend Breakup. But obviously that is not the case. So I guess it’s only fair to hear her out.

(Honest to God, this is what goes on inside my head. Fully formed conversations, with logical arguments and visual aids.)

Then I saw the timestamp on Jessica’s email. Hella Early o’clock this morning.

Uh oh. I have a feeling I’m about to feel really bad about all of this.

Um. YEP. Because I behaved badly. I jumped to conclusions. I made assumptions. I did the thing that annoys the crap out of me about every single cast member on every variation of the “Real Housewives” franchise: I created an enormous amount drama out of nothing that anyone cares about.

So Jessica apologized for the misunderstanding. Which she shouldn’t have had to do because – in case I haven’t been entirely clear about this – NONE OF THIS WAS HER FAULT.

Let’s recap:
* Did Jessica say that UltimateCheerleaders.com sucks? No.
* Did she say UltimateCheerleaders.com is creepy? No.
* Did she say anything whatsoever about UltimateCheerleaders.com? No.
* Prior to yesterday, did she even know UltimateCheerleaders.com exists? Well, she does now, obviously. But I expect that’s a relatively new development.
* Did Jessica’s sister Krystal say, imply, hint, or ever spend two seconds of her time pondering the existence and/or creepiness of UltimateCheerleaders.com? Probably not.

Jessica is up there in Seattle, trying to audition, trying to get chosen for the team, and have her sister with her. They both make the team, they’re all happy. Their friends and family are happy. They’re celebrating. And somehow, in the wee hours of the morning, Jessica gets wind of my little hissy fit. And now I have effectively ruined her good time. Rained on her parade. Peed in her cornflakes. And probably her sister’s cornflakes. And several of her teammates’ cornflakes.

Jessica didn’t say any of this, of course. She was busy saying it was a misunderstanding (which of course it was) and she feels awful about it. And now I feel even worse, because she’s being nice about it. Gracious. Sincere, even. Crap. I’m sorry.

This is so typical of my life. Somehow, I have gone from being “righteously” angry at the entire Sea Gals team, to being righteously hated by the entire Sea Gals team, I’m sure.

Crap. I hate being wrong.

On the one hand, my overblown sense of importance assures me that all of the Sea Gals veterans, newbies, and probably a few alumni are busily emailing each other about what a total bee-atch I am. On the other hand, reality tells me the vast majority of women who are (or ever were) Sea Gals have probably never heard of me or this website.

So now I feel awful. Really awful. Major League Awful. What if this has damaged Jessica and Krystal’s standing on the team? NFL/NBA dance team directors are real sensitive about the stuff that gets written about their team. Sometimes the dancers themselves are held responsible. Should I contact the Sea Gals’ Director?

(Um…Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
I doubt Sherri has heard about any of this, and I am
for sure not going to be the one to bring it to her attention.)

And I can’t even be all “Woohoo, congrats!” to Jessica and Krystal. Or to their teammate Shelly, who I’m almost positive joined the Decade of Dance club last night, because I’ve kind of been a jackass and I know it.

Times like this, I really wish I could be one of those women like you see on “Bridezillas,” one of those “the world revolves around me and everyone else is WRONG” kind of women. One of those “I am never wrong, but even when I am wrong, I am still right, and YOU are wrong for even suggesting I’m wrong” kind of women. You know what I’m talking about.

So, I’m very sorry for starting all of this, and I think maybe I need to go sit somewhere and think about what I did. As a matter of fact, I am officially grounding myself. No UC for a week. Maybe two weeks. (And that really blows, seeing as how the Titans and Jets haven’t announced their teams, and Cowboys Cheerleader auditions haven’t even started yet.)

(However, one thing I am NOT sorry about is the Wonder Woman graphic I used last night. It is awesome, and I am going to post it as often as I can fit it into the conversation.)

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming. See ya in a couple weeks.