Week 6 Observations

I once heard Gilbert Gottfried tell a very bad joke that quickly became one of my all time favorites.

It goes something like this:

A woman gets into a horrible car wreck, is taken to the hospital. Her frantic husband rushes over as soon as he hears, finds the doctor.

Doctor says: “You might want to sit down for this. Turns out she’s broken dozens of bones, is likely paralyzed and also brain damaged, might not recognize you, will need round-the-clock care, perhaps for decades, and your insurance covers none of it.”

Man drops to his knees in despair.

“I’m just fucking with you, she’s dead!”

For those who have not yet cancelled your subscription, I’m the man in this joke, the Giants are my wife, and the doctor was the game I watched this morning while having taken the Bills in Survivor.

You know you’re not supposed to be rooting against your own team, even if the circumstances are dire, even if it’s in your interest that they lose. That’s why I always tell Seslowsky (with whom I share a Survivor entry) that I don’t want to pick against the Giants. The problem isn’t if they get blown out, it’s if they’re in a close game, and especially if they win.

One other relevant detail: the 40-minute edited version wasn’t up yet this morning in Portugal, and after trying to fast forward through the full game using my shitty Apple TV remote for a quarter, I gave up and watched the five-minute highlights. So mercifully I didn’t see the details of how it got to that point, though I did watch a replay of the final Darren Waller target in the end zone, and he was definitely interferred with. (Thank God they didn’t call it.)

Seriously though, I feel disgusting, and part of why I settled for the five-minute highlights (in addition to thinking it would be a blowout) is watching is the problem more than the result. Once it’s over, you’re either through to Week 7 or not, but to watch is to undermine your bond with your team, play after play. When you let your fandom you’ve had since childhood be easily trumped by other ends, you’ve counterfeited the entire premise. For what is fandom, but an irrational and emotional attachment you perpetuate even if it causes you pain. To ditch your team for the meager prospect of a Survivor payout (and this isn’t even a high-stakes pool!) is to sell out a part of your humanity, like people who are ecstatic about their Raytheon stock pumping now that war is breaking out in the Middle East.

And I had the Dolphins available too.

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