B!tch Eating Crackers Syndrome

Follow the crumbs of outrage

I first heard the phrase ‘Bitch Eating Crackers’ in an episode of Maintenance Phase. It’s a shorthand for that unique experience of intense dislike. Where you have got so deep into your frustration that whatever the person will do, it’ll piss you off. Just look at that bitch, eating crackers.

I would say I am a person fairly in touch with my anger. In all honesty, for a long time it was the only strong emotion I could freely access. When I worked as a community organiser, I learnt just how powerful anger could be. How it was one of the most reliable motivators. How this fire in me could be used to fan the spark in others, lighting a new way forward.

When I started to write, I would need to summon that rage. There were no words without it. I needed that white hot clarity to articulate my argument (let’s not think on that too much thanks armchair psychs). All that is to say, I am particularly adept at finding cracker eaters.

I’ve found them everywhere and no doubt for many, I am one too.

This is on my mind as crumbs have been flying this week with the decision made by Wellington Rugby to host the women’s club finals at my home club of Wainuiomata. To many in our women’s rugby community, Wellington Rugby is that bitch eating crackers. So really, it didn’t matter where they were to host the final, they would piss someone off.

I get it. Wellington Rugby are the antagonist in my villain origin story. I wouldn’t be doing the work I am today had that organisation not carried themselves they way they have. But as much as I am in touch with anger, I am also in touch with the other primary motivating emotion, hope.

Anger spurs me into action and hope keeps me going. I have to turn that anger into hope at some point or else I just burn out. It’s when I have no hope left, that I’m finished. Which is why I actually broke up with Wellington Rugby two years ago.

I wrote an email to then Chief Executive, Matt Evans, notifying him of my list of concerns and handing them over to their organisation to do with as they pleased. I withdrew and Wellington Rugby stopped being a cracker eating bitch because they were now irrelevant. I couldn’t no longer get mad because I didn’t expect anything from them.

That distance is actually the only thing you can do that resolves Bitch Eating Crackers syndrome. When things have become that toxic, to stay in contact is to take that on. Spend too much time in proximity of the problem and you become part of it. Or at least, that’s what I have told myself in a career full of righteous quitting.

I can see it though, in the conversations I have had with people this week regarding our finals location. Last year, the finals were played simultaneously out in Upper Hutt at the neutral NZCIS grounds. Teams may have felt this was a prestigious option given this is the home to the Hurricanes and also hosts Black Ferns camps. The facilities are great but they aren’t exactly the most accessible.

First, you have to make sure your team doesn’t get lost through the multiple gate entries. The changing rooms are lovely but so far from the field that we opted to come out for warm up and then stay out til kick off. Upper Hutt is not a central location either, a good 30 minutes for even the closest team to travel. There was also no location for after match. The games were played, the trophies handed out and then that was it for the season.

What Wellington Rugby is doing this year is different. For the first time I can remember, division 1 and 2 are being played in the same location but are staggered in their kick off time. This means you can actually watch both. Something I’ve never been able to do before. Given my team was knocked out last week, there is no home field advantage for any of the teams.

Teams will have to travel to participate but no further than they did last year. Shorter still from the changing rooms to the field. The clubhouse is also one of the larger in the region, making it a functional space to host those that stay for an after match.

I asked Wellington Rugby why they had landed on Wainuiomata as the host this year and ultimately it was due to the reasons I have outlined above and the schedule. No men’s teams are home this week, so we have no clash to navigate on our finals day. Nevertheless, people are mad. Seeing crackers all over these actions. It’s all rage, no hope. So I urge them to step back.

The field the finals will be played on. HOW TERRIBLE!

I am having to do this myself again. Not with Wellington Rugby, believe it or not, their actions of late have reignited some hope. No distance is needed from the club these finals are being played at. I have been in an on and off relationship with the Wainuiomata Rugby Club for 14 years now. But lately, they’ve been chewing those crackers pretty loud.

My Mum always says, “Loves the only thing that changes things”. She’s right but I’ve come to realise that my anger is an expression of love. It’s a burning self love, signalling when something or someone has overstepped a boundary. So I am angry now but also hopeful. My hope comes from a freedom I can now see outside those old clubroom walls.

More on that story later but for now it’s time to pull away and brush off these crumbs.

With you,

Alice