Taking Back Sunday

Most you know that I am an ardent Bengal fan. You can insert any joke here that you want about their current record (win/loss or prison), coaching (or lack thereof) or players (or the pack of Girl Scouts impersonating real NFL players) , or ownership(I really cannot comment further...I'm too tired) . I have heard it all before, and repeated most of it...yet for some reason, I am a season ticket holder.

Going to the games in a year like this is horrible, but since you pay months in advance, you kind of resign yourself to it. You show up late, you leave earlier, you divest yourself emotionally and you hope for better next year. You play the Barge Game or the Escalator Game to pass the time. (The Barge Game is where you bet which direction a barge will pass, in what quarter, and what type. I.e.: 1st quarter, heading east, a coal barge. Whereas the Escalator Game is where players take bets on when the escalators will turn from up...to down. Start of 4th quarter is always a good bet, but the bold can sometimes reach for late in the 3rd quarter)

The real bummer is Away Games, where you have this beautiful HD TV set up. All summer long you look forward to and make plans to drink beer and eat nachos and watch football. But when they're this bad, you don't want to. If you do, 4:00 comes around and you realize you've wasted your day. You're pissed. You thought today might be the day. They have to win sooner or later..... recent seasons have shown us you might sit through 10, 11 horrible games to get that one win. People...it's not worth it!!!

This season, rather than watch on TV, I decided to do something positive. As a symbol of what life could be like, if we didn't invest ourselves every year into this terrible team. Something I could look at for years and say, "All this....because I took back my Sunday." And we can. We can all take back our Sunday. We can lift ourselves up from the wretchedness that is our existence as fans, and look forward to Sunday once again.

Here is how. Pick a project...any project. Put the game on the radio if you must, but come kick-off, abandon the TV and start working. Maybe it's painting a room, mowing the yard, staining a deck. Something physical that says, "I didn't waste my time."

Maybe they'll be better next year, maybe they'll be worth the investment of time. But not this year. My project is the dining room. My wife and I laid a tile floor on Sundays. Call it... Fan Therapy. The first step is always admitting you have a problem.

Here goes, I'm a little nervous.

Hi! My name's Chris, and I am a Bengal's fan. I have been in recovery for 9 weeks. This is my project.