We've switched to a different soccer team this year. When we signed up, it did say that they get a white jersey this year but no ball like they did when she was little and playing in this league. Fine, I didn't think anything of it and we certainly have about five balls here.

It turns out that the kids who played last year got red jerseys though, meaning they have white and red jerseys. The first three games of this season guess what color our kids wear - RED. How can you assign children to wear a jersey you didn't give them? How can you justify it by saying they were given last year when we weren't in this league last year.

When she was younger, they got the white or red jersey but also the other color in a t-shirt. You only got the new items if you were new to the team, that's logical and it wouldn't be cost effective to issue real jersey stuff each season. But you do have to give child the items you expect them to wear in a game to represent your team. And then I realized they didn't give her shorts either - which they all got last year.

Are you telling me it is really fair to make my child wear just a red shirt we find lying around? She won't match her teammates and we don't even have red shirts (our favorite collegiate team has a rival that wears red, so we have almost no red in this house). These kids moved up an age level and moved from 6v6 to 8v8 - there are new kids on every team in the league!

I emailed the league and their entire response was that we could come to their offices - about 20 minutes away - and BUY a red jersey for $18. WHAT? I've asked a friend with a bigger growing daughter to see if she has an old red jersey we can borrow.

At this point, there is a decent chance on Saturday that most of my daughter's teammates will be all dressed to match in their red jersey and league shorts but a few of the kids will look like random semi-matching stragglers in red tshirts and plain black shorts.