Editor’s Note:  Anyone who has read Huckleberry Finn is most likely aware of the admonishment set forward by Mark Twain not to read too much into the story.  The rant you’re about to read by the sole provider and primary purveyor of verbal brilliance here at TharpSter.Org barks up the same tree with a few exceptions.  First or foremost, every reference he makes in this piece to a certain NFL franchise which calls itself “America’s Team”, no matter how acidic, no matter how visually challenging, no matter how profane, no matter how degrading, is held close to his heart in the same manner as his family, his dogs, Star Wars, Bloom County, and Def Leppard.  He has absolutely no love for that team, and will not be filtering his metaphors out of respect for the delicate sensibilities of the reader.  Instead, he will let them fly in every manner they come to mind so as to exercise his artistic integrity.  Consider yourself warned. 

The second exception lies in the overarching theme which will be conveyed.

Otherwise, feel free to call bullshit on everything else, much like Mark Twain advised us so many years ago.

Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s Thanksgiving.  You know what that means.

Today, our walls and feeds out in the vapid world of social networking will be littered with all types of sentimental bullshit about coming together as one on the one day a year which seems to carry more meaning in America than any of the other holidays.  Tomorrow we’ll see the source of gratefulness move to the events of Black Friday.  On the internet, you’ll find a good deal or two on a new turnip-twaddler for Aunt Bernice.  A friend will post a picture of the tent they pitched in front of Best Buy while waiting to take advantage of a deal on a TV.  A crowd somewhere in middle America will crush one its members to death while trying to breach a locked sliding glass door at a Wal-Mart.  Cynical assholes such as yours truly will write about said events with what never seems to be quite enough biting sarcasm.

Such is life.

This morning, a memory came up from last year on my Facebook wall which pretty much conveyed the same sentiment.  As I read it this morning while depositing a generous portion of solid waste into what I’ve coined as the “Justin Bieber Center for the Performing Arts”, I considered reposting the message as a status update for today.  Upon further consideration, I chose not to repost it.

The 3-7 team I was referring to was that one out of Dallas which is coached by one of the Weasleys.  Whereas they’ve sucked for years, they don’t seem to suck this year.  If I were to post that statement, I would get a bunch of crap from every fan, be it casual or die hard, about how this year they hold one of the best records in the league.

So I left it alone and didn’t repost it.

Instead, I considered posting a blog today entitled “Cynical Gratitude”.  Keep in mind I was still in the midst of making a generous donation to the Justin Bieber Center for the Performing Arts.  You saw just a hint of that blog a few paragraphs up.  The blog I had in mind was just too damned cynical.  Whereas I’d like to think I have plenty of reasons to be cynical, I have many more to be grateful and thankful.  So instead of plopping my properly evacuated tuckus down and writing that piece, I turned on Netflix and watched The Princess Bride.

Insert your favorite quote from that movie right [here].

Having achieved a better attitude through the wonder of film, I packed up with Wifey, the kids, the mashed taters, the cream cheese & bacon dip, and dinner rolls, and departed to the off-site meeting where turkey would be served.

Bear with me people.  Eventually I’ll make my point.

It should probably be said that practically all of my in-laws are fans of that particular team.  What are the odds that we were going to get all the way through Tom’s roasted carcass without someone calling attention to last year’s memory and the fact that their beloved team has something like 9 wins right now?

Put your abacus away.  I’ve already done the math.

The odds of successfully navigating lunch today without that discussion were 1 in 7,139,990,886.  Coincidentally, that just happens to be the phone number of the house were a golden lab named Sunny used to spend her days staring at chameleons who had taken up residence on the gas meter.

Obviously I had been put on the spot.  Over the years, I’ve never been shy about discussing my hatred for the syphilitic gaggle of moose taint that poisons the NFL well.  If I were to refuse to be drawn into the discussion, that wouldn’t really cast a good light on my position.  If the team is doing good, how much credence will my trash talk carry?  Fans will just respond to me with something along the lines of “Haters Gonna Hate”.

For those of you who either don’t know, or don’t care, I’m a Business Analyst in the mutual fund industry when I’m not here at the compound spewing my ideology, being dutch-ovened by the dogs, and making generous contributions to the Justin Bieber Center for the Performing Arts.  In order to remain gainfully employed in such a position, I’ve constructed a three legged stool which serves as my mantra in the world of the cubicle farm:

1. See the future.
2. Walk on water.
3. Don’t trust others to do their own job.

It’s served me well.  In fact, there have been plenty of times outside of the mutual fund industry where those rules have applied.  A few weeks ago when I began to perceive that the fetid bag of monkey excrement was going to have a good season this year, I saw the future.  My friends who worship at their alter and view Tony Romo as the second coming were going to start giving me shit.  I needed to prepare a response.  A couple initially came to mind:

“Sure they’re doing fine.  Once they put that blue waffle Romo back in, they’ll choke before they can get out of week 1 of the playoffs.”

“Of course they’re doing good.  The year 2016 has been a bad year, what with the deaths of David Bowie, Prince, Glen Frey, and Alan Rickman.  It only makes sense that the trend continues with the success of crappy teams like the Raiders and your vomit fondling shit bricks.”

“Yeah, get bent.  How long has it been since they even went to the Super Bowl?  Twenty years?  My Broncos have been there four times since then under two different quarterbacks and have three rings to show for it.”

But of course, any of those responses or any of the responses which immediately come to mind will be met with the assertion that I’m just being bitter over the absence of my schadenfreude.

In pondering a successful season for the pendulous meat curtains this year, I opted to delve into how I would accept the premise that the team I hate the most could win it all this year.  It occurred to me that I had that same discussion with myself this last August when I realized that something else that I considered bad was about to happen.  At the time, I resigned to the fact that the perceived outcome of that particular situation was inevitable.  Even though I mentally prepared for the undesirable results, I fought against it and witnessed a reversal of the inevitability.

In the same vein, I considered this season in the NFL.  We’re 10 or 11 weeks into the season this year, and I’ve watched a total of maybe three games all season, half-heartedly.  Given that I’ve been known to watch a couple of games a week, that’s a change.  It’s not because Peyton Manning is gone and my Broncos have been known to do better.  It’s not because my mind has been on other things, although Lord know it has.

The NFL has been embroiled in all types of social engineering over the last several years.  Gone are the days where players can go after not only the dude with the ball, but his family and subsequent issue in open field tackles designed to liberate a player of his ability to get the license plate number on the truck that just hit him.

Fine.  If the science says that tackle football is killing its players, then stop sanctioning it.

But that’s not it.

All of this bullshit with players protesting the National Anthem in favor of making a political statement is not a game I’m going to watch.  If the NFL wants to fine and penalize its players unequally for beating their girlfriends/wives, deflating footballs, beefing up with extra Flintstone chewables, and listening to their music with the wrong pair of headphones, so be it.  It’s their prerogative.  If they want to do that and look the other way while their players jump on the “Hate America First” bandwagon, then I’m not interested in patronizing their product or any of the merchandise offered by their sponsors.

So I haven’t watched a whole lot of football this year, and I’m not really emotionally invested this year.  What do I care if that group of felching turd burglars win the Super Bowl this year?

I don’t.

I can’t tell my friends that I don’t care though.  It’s a bullshit response, because I now look like my concern is fair weathered and only applies when they’re losing.

You’re wondering when the hell I’m going to make my point.

Strap in, because here it comes.

“Allow me to say this about that.”  I responded to my in-law this afternoon at lunch when I was reminded of the current record for the parasitic ass waffles.  “If those window licking butt munchers make it to the Super Bowl this year, good for them.  It goes without saying that I will not root for them.  If they go against the Raiders (aka my Broncos’ division rival), I will be part of the Raider-nation.  Even still, if they do win, I’ll be fine with it.  More power to them.  I’ll be fine with it knowing the mere fact that the last name of the person in the White House at the time won’t be the same one it was twenty years ago, the last time they won.”