The Blue Dye-aries

“We’re hosting the annual state tournament hair-dyeing party, Dad,” said my daughter, “in our basement!” The only thing I heard was BLUE DYE EVERYWHERE.

This was the eighth year in a row the school’s girls soccer team made it to the state tournament. The activity on the field brings them together as players, but the activity off the field brings them together as humans. That is a winning combination.

Our daughter is one of the team captains, so as captains’ parents, we get to help with events. Twenty-five hungry high school soccer players. We’ve never hosted a party larger than 12.

The girls spent the afternoon at the state tournament banquet, which really isn’t a banquet because no food is served. Three classes of teams, eight teams per class, meant two hours of speeches and some awards. While they listened politely to all the coaches talk, I took the tops off of hundreds of strawberries, made cream cheese honey dip for carrots, stocked the refrigerator with drinks, and ordered pizzas.

My daughter texted me at 4:25 pm that a caravan of carpooling kids was headed my way. Upon arrival, they immediately pounced on the snacks while I wondered how all these people were going to fit into the seating arrangement I built.

We thought it might be a bit cramped. They said it felt like family Thanksgiving! Just as the snacks were gone, the doorbell rang. One of the team captains met the delivery guy at the door and helped me carry all the pizzas into the kitchen. I had to laugh at how loud it got when one of the girls yelled, “The pizzas are here!”

We were thankful the pizza place delivered the nine large pizzas a little early. The girls grabbed plates. Plain cheese was more popular than pepperoni, and the salad, with ranch dressing, was gone too. It got quiet again as everyone crushed pizza.

They didn’t stop talking with each other the entire evening. This wasn’t one of my daughter’s usual friend groups of seniors. They ranged in age from 13-18, including four ninth-grade ball chasers who were promoted to hang out with the varsity team and officially chase balls during tournament games. They didn’t know many people. But you wouldn’t know it the way they shared stories, talked about how they were going to dye their hair, or what the weather might be on game day.

As the energy shifted downstairs for hair-dyeing, I wondered: would my desk be blue? The treadmill, or walls? Our daughter figured the utility sink in the basement would be a great place to do it. Which also happens to be right next to my basement gym/office. What could go wrong? A lot.

With a variety of hair colors and textures, there were more than a few ways to do it, some involving bleach. A few girls had to re-dye more than once. After all, blue means blue, and they wanted to get the shade just right.

About an hour into the dyeing, my wife asked me to order a few more pizzas. They just ate! Plus we have dessert, too, I thought. Placing the order, I wondered where I was going to store all the leftover pizza. My storage planning was all for naught as the girls quickly ate two more large cheese pizzas, and a massive family-size bag of Twizzlers. Oh to be a high school kid again!

One of my more joyous tasks was to get the firepit going. S’mores for everyone. A few chose to carve two of the pumpkins we had available.

At the end of the night, a few girls stayed to help clean up, though there wasn’t much to do, as this group works hard, plays hard, and cleans hard. The only thing left blue besides hair was my wife’s blow dryer, used by the girls’ blue-stained hands to dry out the dyed hair.

Go Stars!