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So I think I found out why my life sucks. When I was a kid, I was always one to shun superstition. If I saw a ladder, I intentionally walked under it. I chased black cats in hope of getting them to cross my path. I spilled salt (repeatedly and intentionally). Shoot, every broken mirror is worth seven years of bad like--that alone is good for 28 years of rotten luck. I even wore the number 13 whenever I played soccer. No wonder the fates have it in for me...

When I was younger, I used to love to play football. Backyard pick-up games, streetball--it really didn't matter. Football was football and I loved it. And since I was never faster than anyone else but always willing to take a beating, I used to love tackle football the most. I could get two or three guys on me and it'd be a struggle to bring me down--probably because I was too stupid not to go down (which also led to post-football soreness).

As I got older, my opinion changed. Maybe it was 'cause I didn't have health insurance or maybe it was 'cause I took longer to heal, but I started to realize how stupid playing tackle football is. Grown men slamming into each other. People being dragged to the ground. It's a miracle no one ever gets hurt. Professional--hell, even high school--football players wear pads: there I was running around like an idiot with my only protection being the two condoms in my wallet. I don't know the exact point it dawned on me, but eventually I figured out someone could get hurt. I sure as hell wasn't gonna allow that to happen to me, so I vowed never to play tackle football ever again.

The football issue came up again this year on Thanksgiving--the day of the year everyone everywhere has a pickup game of football. Between my brothers and their friends, we had eight people at the park to play some football. The biggest guy wanted to play tackle (no shock there), but got outvoted. Of course, he was 20 and still a fast healer.

Despite it being touch, I still managed to get hurt. I jammed a finger trying to bat a ball on defense and somewhere I must've landed hard on my sternum because my chest hurts.

A harmless touch game with friends should be fun, but it wasn't. The game was pathetic. No one could throw the football. Offenses were awful. No one knew how to properly run a route. Defenders who were beat tackled receivers--before the ball was thrown. It was madness--total chaos. And because of this insanity, I didn't have very much fun.

I think I've screwed myself. I've reached to point where I've watched so much football and know so much about offenses; I can't play in that jungleball game. I think running an offense is like a science: you gotta call the right play to beat a defense. In the NFL, bigger and faster doesn't always win because everyone is bigger and faster: it's the teams with smarts that wins. I think that's why I don't like college football: it's too sloppy compared to the pros. And if I can't sit through a college game, how am I supposed to have fun with fools who don't know how to slant pattern?

It's a bummer 'cause I used to love playing football now it's just somehting to do while waiting for the turkey to be cooked. I guess I'll hafta add football to the list of things I no longer enjoy doing now that I've gotten older--right there next to eating paste.

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