Good Lord

A quick confession: I turned the game off with the Ravens up 27-3 in the third quarter. I don't apologize for this. After all, I am an important man and I have better things to do with my time, like huffing paint thinner and racing giraffes in the park. And before any of you get all up in arms, no I don't ride the giraffes or make them compete cruelly against one another. Instead, I do exactly what I said. I race them, one on one, me against them, as a test of my primal athleticism. Afterwards, we discuss poetry and ancient philosophy. I don't always win, but really, it's the attempt that's important, just getting out there and doing it, you know, and . . .

This is what the Lions have driven me to. I have been responsible for some baffling gibberish over the past couple of seasons, but that is a whole new level of stupid and strange, and, well, I would rather write about racing giraffes than the Lions. It has come to that. It's far more interesting and fulfilling at this point. But, since turning away from the stark reality of the rancid terrible truth that is the apocalyptic game that just went down between the Lions and the Ravens does no one any good, I will brave this shit storm and try, somehow, to talk about what just went down.

Okay. Hi. We've been through a lot over the past couple of seasons. Hell, we've been through a lot over the past decade. But, in the course of writing inane gibberish for this blog, this was the first time that I said fuck it and turned off a game so early. Sure, there have been times when I wandered away late in the fourth quarter, with the game out of reach, but it was always still on in the background, and even if I was just doing a crossword puzzle(why yes, I am a little old lady) or peeling carrots(not a masturbation euphemism . . . or is it?) or doodling obscene sketches involving Batman and Alfred(everyone expects it to be Robin, but the real lusty heart of the Batman saga is between Batman and Alfred. And, no, I don't give a fuck about comics, this was just a joke so please nerds, do not get all fidgety about this.) or drinking turpentine and wrestling she-wolves, I was always at least semi-aware of what was happening.

But not this time. No. I'm not sure what did it, but I just decided to let it all go and accept that the Lions were going to lose and lose terribly and I had no desire to see any of it. I figured that the Ravens would shut it down, that the Lions might get a garbage score or two and the game would end up looking a little closer than it was, and I was okay with that. I have seen that story played out far too many times to get worked up about it one way or the other. So, I went about my life for a couple of hours, and then decided to check back on the score. I saw the numbers 48-3 and then just laughed, because really, what the hell else are you supposed to do at that point?

I then decided to delve deeper into the box score, because I am a masochist and a great fool, and discovered that the Ravens rolled up over 500 yards of total offense and that Daunte Culpepper was, well, Daunte Culpepper. I thought back to the announcers talking about how the Lions defense had stepped up a bit over the last few weeks and about how Culpepper knew that he was still capable of being a starting quarterback in the NFL and then I laughed again. I then doused myself in gasoline, lit a match and ran naked and screaming through the streets until a kindly old man beat me half to death with a pillow case full of old batteries in order to put out the fire. I thanked him, went inside, put some Neosporin on, and then read a couple of game recaps, saw that Kevin Smith apparently torched his knee in the fourth quarter and then I went back outside, punched that old man in the face for not allowing me sweet relief and then laid in the snow and cried for a while.

There are days when it feels like there is a point to all this nonsense - well, as much as a point that mere sports can have anyway - and then there are days like today, when it all just seems like an absurd joke, one that ends with a gigantic fart of an explanation point that clears the room and sends old people to the emergency room with watery eyes and lungs full of brown death. Okay, that was kind of disturbing, but so is losing 48-3. I would like to think that my brain somehow knew the horrors that lay ahead and forced me to abandon ship before it was swallowed up and eaten by The Kraken, and for that, I thank it. These are treacherous times, and sometimes you need to take the shameful road of cowardice in order to preserve what's left of your sanity. This is nothing to be celebrated, but then, neither is what happened against the Ravens today. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. Kevin Smith's knee knew it, and it committed suicide rather than live through the horrible conclusion to this epic turd. These are dark days, terrible and obscene, and although we may live to see better days, days like this will haunt the living forever, and perhaps this is the way it should be.