ineluctable modality of football

television, for eightieth time in three hours: OMG YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS THE TRUCK AND UTILITY VEHICLE EVENT OF THE YEAR!!!
micah:
me:
television: IF YOUR TRUCK IS FLACCID AND INADEQUATE THEN YOU WILL BE DELIGHTED TO KNOW THAT THE FORD GRAND ADVENTURING RAPIST IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR LIKE FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
me:
television: [generic guitar solo; vehicle trampling entire forest]
micah: you know, we really go through a lot to watch football.

why. why in the hell do we do it. i would be so much better off, in life, if the steelers weren’t a good team. i would have spent so many fewer hours either
- smugly re-reading the same mediocre AP recap of an arbitrary and violent event that has no effect on my life, or
- wanting to kill myself

whether your favorite team wins or loses, you lose. if they win, it means nothing, and now you are gloaty and awful and everyone wants to push you down the stairs. if they lose, it basically feels like god jabbed you in the eyeball. also, you have spent three and a half hours listening to ill-spoken idiots with nothing of interest to say except for an occasional trainwreck of cliches (”THEY’RE JUST TRYIN’ TO RUN THE CLOCK DOWN THEIR THROATS”), liberally interspersed with ads for
1) trucks
2) a more reliable boner
3) all-you-can-eat shrimp

i’ll go further: sports has robbed me of a lot of my humanity. i don’t even want to go into details, but essentially the Belichick-Patriots videotaping scandal has turned me into Boston’s Most Awful Housemate. all of my roommates are patriots fans, and i am the one who now routinely walks into rooms and announces things like:

“boy! how about them patriots!”

[uneasy silence]

“ALL OF THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS HAVE BEEN EXPOSED AS ILLEGITIMATE. BY ASSOCIATION, YOU, TOO, ARE A FRAUD. HA HA HA HA HA.”

[resentment, settling opaquely over our bodies]

“I WAS WONDERING IF ANYONE WANTED THE LAST BEER IN THE FRIDGE.”

whatever. The Arrival (ramos) is a week from this morning. ideally we will schedule rehearsals on sundays.

until then, though, the 49ers must die.