Life After Football
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
I haven’t posted on any boards. I have barely read any football news since the Colts committed suicide on national television. I’m still kind of numb. Granted it was kinda nice that New Orleans finally got a Super Bowl despite that gawd awful “Who dat?” phrase. Jesus, I heard it so much that week that it was almost like I was an extra on the set of the Waterboy II. Well life goes on, but I really don’t know if I feel like discussing football right now. As Bill Polian said, it’s the past, move on. So who am I to argue?
Since I didn’t have football to occupy my mind, I needed something else to help burn off some of the extra spastic brain energy that had built up in my think melon. Mass quantities of alcohol and Rock Band, Beatles style, YES! That was the ticket! I called my band mates and had them over, started feeding the alcohol fueled machine and then put the kids to bed. We made it through “Something” where my band mates carried their own weight all while I scored 100% on both the bass and harmony parts. I rocked that plastic imitation Hofner bass like nobody’s business! My drummer attempted to pick another tune for us to do, but was unable to do so. You know drummers, not the smartest lot. So I used my own controller to get the band going again, all to no avail. At that moment, the lead singer pointed at my Xbox 360 and said, “What do those red lights mean?” Yes my friends, it was the Red Ring of Death. For those of you non-360 owners, the Red Ring of Death is a feature built into every one of Microsoft’s game consoles that activates a critical hardware failure every time Microsoft’s stock drops below $25.17 a share. So now I had a new problem. I had these drunk guys in my house jonesing to scream Beatles songs at the top of their lungs all while acting like they had some semblance of musical talent. Someone suggested we go to Wal-Mart and buy a new Xbox, bring it back to my house, swap the hard drives out and take the dead one back to Wally-World. What a great idea! Now all we had to do was to figure out who was going to drive our drunken asses to Wal-Mart. To answer that complex question we decided to play Wii bowling. The loser would drive. We decided a best out of three format was best. After we determined the driver we needed to figure out who was going to purchase the temporary 360 to later return it. That meant that we had to play another match set to determine the purchaser and even another to determine who was going to drive us back, because it wasn’t fair to make the original driver do again. Well, it wasn’t fair unless he lost his ass at bowling again. It got to be 2am and we had yet to assign all of the important positions, when the urge for Tombstone pizzas took over. I distinctly remember telling all of them to leave their pants on just in case my one of daughters woke up before they stumbled home. Well unfortunately, I wasn’t the first one up. But fortunately they were all able to pass out in my downstairs without removing any articles of clothing.
I eventually got up and kicked my band mates out, but not before my daughters had drawn things on their exposed skin during their alcohol induced slumber. A day of rest is what I had planned for the rest of the day, but my wife had other plans. She told me her mother wanted to check out Indiana Live casino and do a little gambling. Well, I could be up for that. Hell, my Monster-in-Law even volunteered to drive and get a babysitter for the girls, bonus. Saturday at the casino was packed. Every machine was filled. I had to wait 45 minutes just for a seat at one of the blackjack tables. I finally got a seat and was a happy camper. The table wasn’t very friendly and I was starting to get a little concerned, when Randy our illustrious Blue Crew President came up and said, “Looks like you could use a beer.” Well hell yeah I could. I took one sip of that magic elixir and I swear I heard the Popeye music going off in my head. You know the tune that plays whenever Popeye chugs a can of spinach? I was ready for action! I started on a tear and could not lose. This is just what I needed. What I didn’t need was my mother-in-law coming up and asking me how much I had in the machine because we had to leave. I explained to her that I was on a role and that I should at least play it out. She didn’t care, she wanted to leave. Just then my wife showed up. A glimmer of hope came over me. My wife looked me dead in the face and said, “Mom wants to go.” You’ve got to be kidding me? I reiterated my streak and Randy even helped plead my case all to no avail. Randy offered to take me home and I even offered to pay for a cab. Oh no, the Monster-in-Law had to leave and I had to leave with her or her daughter would receive the brunt of her wrath in my absence. %#@& ME!
Oh look, morning and more snow. So this makes what, 3 shovelings in less than 7 days? Oh I love my life. Nothing quite says fun like shoveling heavy snow with a surgically repaired back with no help. Several beers, oxycontin and a heating pad later I was in a happier place, at least for a moment.
Monday came around and it was time to go back to work. Well for me at least, the girls had a holiday from school. I drove around in the crappy continuing snow all day and prayed for my day to be over. I finally made it back home and the girls were still in their PJs playing the Wii just as I left them several hours earlier. Did I mention that it snowed all day and no one touched the driveway? I thought I would do something nice (God knows why), so I decided to make some spaghetti with my wonderful, soon to be famous homemade sauce (those of you that have had it can contest to its amazingness). Got the sauce simmering and went out to shovel my untouched driveway, which AGAIN is just great on my surgically repaired back. Came in made a drink. Threw in the garlic bread and started boiling the water for the pasta. After I placed the garlic bread on the island to cool, it was time to drain the pasta. Apparently it was also time for Loki (my collie) to claim the garlic bread as his own from the counter. I guess I really didn’t want any garlic bread. At times, I think the guy upstairs really doesn’t like me. Is it football season yet?
So sayeth the Meanie,
Yell, scream GO HORSE!!!
