The Fix Was In !

Darling readers, I have something to talk to you about which may shock you. No, I'm not referring to Mama Zen's lesbian experimentation while attending Bryn Mawr in the 80s. Curve magazine has pretty much covered that, don't you agree?

Let me begin with a confession: I have been dabbling with watching NFL football. I know, you thought I was better than that. I'm sorry. But, here in Detroit we have certain traditions: big American cars, Thanksgiving Day football games, blight, corruption, and losing. So, every Thanksgiving,  I watch the Lions out of a sense of civic duty. Then I go back to compiling collections of haiku. 

However, this year, the Lions won. I think it did something to my brain. In any event, I kept watching. I watched as they rolled to mighty victories over a series of dispirited also-rans, and I watched as they lost a game at Green Bay for the division title. (Why is there a team in Green Bay? Where the hell IS Green Bay?) Ever the lady, I made no unkind remark about announcer Joe Buck's absurd green and yellow knee pads. Further, I admired how he was able to call the entire game despite keeping Aaron Rodgers' long bomb in his mouth the whole time. Linda Lovelace was nothing but an amateur. 

But I digress.

What I want to tell you about is the game after that. The playoff game (!) between our beloved Lions and the host Dallas Cowboys, whose fans are mostly a backward, inbred group who vote almost exclusively Republican. Indeed, New Jersey governor Chris Christie was there, jumping up and down like ten Tom Cruises, and bro hugging anyone who wasn't nailed down. I should have realized right then that things would not be on the up and up.

The Lions built a 20-7 lead. They could have won. They should have won. But some funny things happened on the way to the next round. Fishy things.

With Detroit needing a first down to keep possession and put away the ridiculous Cowboys, a fine young man named Mathew Stafford stepped back to pass. Up went the ball, hurtling toward its intended target. But then, a Cowboys defender leaped upon and climbed the Detroit receiver like a Family Values congressman on a Bangkok whore. This miscreant pulled the receiver's underwear up over his head and then spun it around backwards like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Finally, he stuck a "kick me" sign on his back and tripped him. Quite rightly, the official threw a flag, signaling pass interference. The penalty was announced, the yardage marked off. But then, an official dressed entirely in Cowboys fan gear emerged from the stands and picked up the flag, mumbling something about "it wasn't that bad." He then awarded the Cowboys the ball, a hundred thousand dollars, and a Pulitzer Prize. Even Joe Buck's jaw dropped in astonishment. 

But that's not all! Last week at Green Bay (Come on...it's a made-up place, right?), Lions' star Nadonkeykong Suh dared to step on the precious, fragile, namby-pamby girly legs of Aaron Rogers. Joe Buck immediately fined him 70,000 dollars! But in the Cowboys game, Mr. Suh was tackled, relieved of his wallet, and dynamited into oblivion by a Cowboys' lineman, while the Dallas quarterback, sitting in an armchair, tossed a fourth down completion en route to a game-winning touchdown, and nothing was called at all. 

One last thing. Immediately following the final play, the offending referee was picked up by Chris Christie, driving a limousine with steer horns affixed the the hood. One would hope that the league would at least make some kind of pretense of fairness. That the referee's seeing eye dogs would not be wearing Dallas hoodies. Oh well. Call me bitter. At least there is one small comfort for me...

Now the Cowboys have to go to Green Bay, wherever the hell that is.