Yay! Monday! Well, OK, maybe that’s a little too much. I mean, it is drizzly and kind of cold and hella overcast here in the Queen City this AM, which is an awful lot to deal with when you’re looking at a new work week too. But, it’s a short work week for many. So even though it’s difficult to look outside without being reminded of Axl Rose playing a piano on a balcony, at least it’s actually kind of like Wednesday already, right?
I guess, then, Happy Humpday?
Oh, and don’t forget, for all my fellow US residents, there’s a pants-button-loosening feast at the end of that short week. I don’t know about you, but I fully plan to OccupyTurkeyAndDressing a few days hence. So, quit complaining.
Speaking of complaining, I’ve got quite a bone to pick with the local football team. They lost yesterday is a gut-wrenching piece of sports drama that included two quarters of shiny inconsistency, a boatload of missed opportunities, and a reversed TD call that still has my dander up.
And yes, I know the officials called it right after replay. But it’s a stupid rule that should be changed. I don’t get how the ground can’t cause a fumble but apparently can cause an incomplete TD pass.
I’m tempted to write my Congressman about it; it’s not like he’s doing anything else productive, anyway.
So the Bengals got the "L" yesterday but made it a heckuva game considering they were down by 17 with 14 minutes and change to go. Surprisingly, the fact that they lost yesterday after losing last week to the Steelers is not what I need to kvetch about. They could of have been better in the first halves of both games, sure, but they pulled themselves up by the athletic supporters in both cases and made those games come down to the last 30 seconds or so.
Like it or not, they’re bringing some real NFL entertainment home, and I’m finding it difficult to maintain my jaded, brittle exterior when it comes to this team.
They were supposed to be God-awful this year. Horrendous. The Eleven Stooges. Local high school teams were lining up before the start of the season hoping for a shot at taking them down. Old ladies with support hose were mocking them roundly in August.
It was gonna be ugly.
So I steeled myself for the worst, and took the attitude that, hey, at least they’d get a decent draft pick. I swore I wasn’t going to care when they lost; I wouldn’t let it ruin my Sundays. I promised myself that this year I’d spend time with my wife and family on game day; everyone would break out a Cosby sweater and play wholesome family board games like Parcheesi. Sundays would be all cocoa and kumbaya.
But dangit, this team is hard not to be enthusiastic about. They’re young, full of brashness and swagger, and are either too immature or too ignorant of the way the NFL works to realize they were supposed to lay down, rollover and play dead. Sure, they make plenty of mistakes, but they also appear to never give up, no matter the odds they’re facing.
This team sort of reminds me of being eighteen again. Well, or how I imagine it was for other people. I was a nerd at eighteen and filled with more words and memorized movie quotes than swagger. Ahem.
At any rate, I was all prepped to be disappointed this season by another lackluster pro football campaign. It turns out that they’re disappointing me, alright. They’re disappointing my expected disappointment, that is.
Which is just fine, if you ask me. As long as they keep it up.
Although it wouldn’t hurt if they’d, you know, maybe try in the first half of games too?
Pud’n
Puddintopia 