Big Daddy Paul

I love fantasy football.  I love fantasy football more than I love my cat.  If fantasy football asked me to the prom, I would say yes, even if I were a senior and it were a freshman.  Sometimes, when I am with fantasy football late at night, I make eyes at its naughty parts.  I have a problem.

Our marriage used to be strained by fantasy football (not because of the naughty parts though!).  I spend Sundays at a sports pub watching all the games.  I obsess about trade proposals.  I lose sleep.  Amy, at first thought all this was funny.  When she realized that it happens every week of the football season, she got concerned.  She never got hostile, but occasionally she would make her true feelings known, feelings that I didn’t necessarily find flattering.  (I do not, under any circumstances, like being called a loser!)  After some time, she started to root against me, hoping that an early elimination would return me to my normal self. Sadly, I am usually not eliminated until quite late in the season, meaning I am a sick little man from September to December.

When I sensed her uneasiness, I tried to incorporate her on my team to A) make her feel like my team was our team, and B) stop rooting against me.  I would consult her on trades and ask for her suggestions on which players to use.  She gave me feedback and we became somewhat of a team.  The problem was that the advice she gave me was absurd, and I would never follow it.  Even so, she didn’t really vest as a true partner and she kept calling it "my losing team," not "our losing team."   She still rooted against me too.

This year was different though.  She has her own fantasy football team!  She manages it every week, talks trash to the other gals in the league, and has to make the same tough decisions that I have had for the past few years.  The kicker is that she actually enjoys it.  She doesn’t really put in the same amount of time (or tears) that I do, but I don’t care.  I don’t know if either of us will win our respective championships, but at least this way we can enjoy an obsession together.  The significance really hit me last night, when we settled down after dinner and watched the Sunday night game.  We were both rooting against the Pittsburgh defense, and I fell in love with my wife all over again. I may have even checked out her naughty parts, but she didn’t notice because she was enjoying a Ben Roethlisberger sack. Yay!

We went to a party on Saturday Night for a friend of Amy’s from work.  (In my efforts to demonstrate that not all the parties we go to anymore involve a child and their birthday, I have been calling it an "Adult Party" but somehow that description has seemed a little too kinky.  I think that I should just call it a 40th birthday party and let people think what they will about it.)  The party had a "Dress Up As Your Favorite Celebrity" theme and Amy went as Angelina Jolie, while I was costumed as a fat Brad Pitt. We didn’t do quite as much leg work on the costumes as we should have, as Amy’s tattoos paled in comparison to the other Angelina Jolie in attendance.  Needless to say, I was the fattest Brad Pitt there though, so that was nice.

At the party, Vivian, the newly crowned 40 year old who looked like she was in her twenties, was resplendently dressed as Audrey Hepburn. Her dog, either Marco or Polo, I cannot remember which, saw the great opportunity use the occasion to eat lots of people food.  He sidled up next to everyone eating the amazing food that Tam, Vivian’s husband and ridiculously talented chef, prepared for the event.  The dog never lunged, but would just sit next to the eater and keep both eyes on the food, hoping that one or two bites would accidentally fall to the ground.  The persistent and desperate look in the dog’s eye seemed to indicate that the dog’s soul desire in life was to get some of that food, as if the dog was always thinking, "Can I have some food? Can I have some food? Can I have some food?"  I felt kind of sorry for the dog, as it was never able to enjoy the party.  It just kept finding people who were wolfing down the vittles and wondering, "Can I have some food? Can I have some food? Can I have some food?"

So, it came as a great surprise to me when I was perched at a bar the next morning watching my fantasy football team get clobbered, when I realized that I was no better than the Marco/Polo.  I would glance at each of the games that I had a player in and I would think to myself, "Score a touchdown! Score a touchdown! Score a touchdown!" I had totally lost the ability to enjoy the game, I would just focus on my individuals and beg for them to make a big play.  It’s going to be a long year, and I will find myself in the same spot making the same desperate request, "Score a damn touchdown already!"  Maybe I am a dog after all, or maybe I am way too into fantasy football.  Either way, I figure at the very least that I am not attending kinky adult parties or, worse yet, children’s birthdays, so that is nice.

You can feel it in the air.  You can sense it in the streets.  Quiet whispers give way to silence.  The sound of crinkling papers can be heard, but upon entry into the room, everything is gone.  You talk to someone, but there is obviously no one home.   Their eyes glaze over, staring off into the distance, and quietly, just below their breath, they give themselves away by saying, “When am I going to pick a quarterback?”

It is fantasy football time again, in case you aren’t aware, fantasy football is the single greatest thing ever.  Sliced bread, don’t need it.  Caffeine, can do without.  If the entry fee for my league were a small, blonde haired boy, Amy and I would be alone again.  (If you think this is sad and pathetic, don’t worry.  I am planning on winning this year, and the likelihood that we would get Malcolm back at the end of the season is pretty good.)  If fantasy football were a large hairball, I would cradle it in my arms and tell it that I love it.  If, god forbid, fantasy football fell into a pit full of urine and shit, I would jump in after it. Smiling. Fantasy football has a hold over me, and I am not alone.

Some people are just not that into fantasy football (or reality football, or any football for that matter).  We have a special word for these people, “wives.”  For a while, I tried to sell the experience to Amy, as if it were some kind of good thing. I would tell her that I was attempting to become a subject matter expert on something and that she should applaud me regardless of what that subject matter is. I told her that is was a good, structured way for me to spend some bonding time with my friends.  I even told her once that I met a little boy in the hospital and his dying wish was for me to draft his favorite tight end in the eighth round.  She didn’t believe any of those, and now I draft a team (or two) and watch the games with my friends, but spend a lot of capital to do it.  (It is so totally worth it.  And to think, George W used his capital on a couple of wars and a crappy ass Medicare prescription drug plan!)

My draft is Sunday.  We are coming home early from a three day weekend to attend it.  I will shortly start losing sleep running scenarios through my head.  Once the season starts, I will leave my wife and son each Sunday to watch games and make fun of the other competitors.  I will lose more sleep thinking about who to trade and chastise myself for drafting certain players and not drafting others.  This will continue for the whole season until the sad, sad day, when my team is eliminated from title contention.  That day, when I come home, Amy will tell Malcolm that “daddy’s back!”  Of course it will be a lot harder for him to take if I have to explain why I had to use him as entry fees into the league, but I am hoping he will be excited nonetheless.

So there we were, Malcolm and I at the Oakland public library, like we do most Wednesdays. A new librarian was droning on and on about frogs or ducks or something so my attention wandered to the little boy wandering around messing with everyone. The kid’s face looked like he was about 40, but was just learning to walk so I put his age at about 11 months. He was meandering about the small group pulling on other kid’s hair, giving hugs, and generally acting like a spazz. I find it comforting when Malcolm is not the biggest thug in the room.

After story time ended, we headed over the grocery store to buy some stuff. I know that you want me to tell you exactly what stuff I had to buy, but I won’t. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. I won’t even tell you why. So don’t ask. Anyways, I was looking for milk and apple juice and ran into the dad of the spazz. I said hi, and asked how old the little boy was. The dad said that she was a year old. Huh? That mess is a girl? I quickly looked her up and down for signs of femaleness and I found none. The kid had a squat body, skinny froggy legs, and nothing on the onesie she was wearing suggested that she either liked sports (which would make her a boy) or unicorns (which would make her a gay boy). Both dad and kid were black, so I immediately wondered if my total lack of perspective was because I am racist. I stared at the face of the spazz and wondered how the hell that little face could be a girls. Was it the fact that I am a racist which clouded my judgment? Was my being a sexist and looking for typically “male” features part of the problem? Was that kid really a girl. No way.

Ah hell. I don’t give a rats ass about this stupid story. My fantasy football draft is tomorrow. I love fantasy football like a dog likes his balls. If fantasy football was a steaming hot pile of pig droppings, I would get down there and rub it all over my face. Fantasy football could appoint a horse trainer to head up FEMA, start a war with Iraq without adequate planning, and ruin absolutely everything everywhere, and I would vote for it a second or third time. I care about fantasy football. I even use my brain. I normally am not the kind of guy who thinks a lot, preferring instead to react to situations with either blind rage or quiet sheepishness. Except for two situations, where I am quite analytical. First is fantasy football. Second is ordering meat at the butcher. I got so sick and tired of ordering half a pound of delicious ham only to have my grandiose plans thwarted by the meat clerk, who after slicing up my tasty swine would ask, “It’s a little over, is that allright?” Fuck no daddio, I don’t want .63 pounds. It’s too much ham!!! To control the situation, I have started bluffing about how much meat I actually need. Now I say I need .42 pounds of ham, and smile with glee when they ask, “is a half a pound ok?” You bet your sweet tits its ok.

Fantasy football challenges me in ways I never thought possible. If you don’t know what fantasy football is, I am not going to tell you. Instead I will punch you in the neck next time I see you and tell you how much you suck. To prepare for my draft, I simultaneously consider factors such as age, injury risk, prior year’s performance, quality of offensive line, and whether I hate the player’s guts. I then create lists, flow charts and squiggly lines to help me when I hit the ground on draft day. After draft day, I will spend every Sunday indoors at a dive bar watching the games with my “friends.” I say that they are my friends, but in fantasy football, there are no friends. Only sworn enemies. I will then come home and watch the Sunday games with my family and dance all around the house when something good happens and hit Malcolm with a pipe when bad stuff occurs. I may not win the championship this year, but it won’t be because of a lack of effort. I think about fantasy football all the time. I look at Malcolm and wonder whether there are any trades I should be making with my sworn enemies. I look at a tree outside our house and wonder who the best kicker in the league is. I see a radiator and wonder whether the Vietnamese gardener who is locked in our crawl space is still alive. God I love fantasy football. The only thing I would do differently is change the name. Anything that I take this seriously shouldn’t be called fantasy anything. That’s like calling an elite army unit the fighting “cupcakes.” If I could rename fantasy football, I would call it Intensely Rewarding Football Analytical Numerology. So that is interesting for a whole new reason. The first letters spell IRFAN, who was a huge fat disgusting Persian guy I knew in college. At least I thought he was a guy. You never know, I am a racist.