I did not watch a single second of this year’s Super Bowl broadcast, instead contenting myself to spend nearly an hour catching up with a cousin via cell phone, and then watching a lot of Science Channel repeats of NASA’s Unexplained Files and similar programming, all of which provided no threat of me being updated on the game.
But I was curious about the eventual Super Bowl outcome, so I got online a few minutes back and was stunned, absolutely stunned (sarcasm) to see the Kansas City Chiefs had won with the help of some controversial officiating.
And I was reminded of a former colleague, since moved on to his eternal reward, who used to opine that the NFL was not fixed, but it was controlled.
I’m so glad I didn’t invest four-plus hours of my life to see this unfold. I imagine domestic violence calls are going to surge in Philadelphia in coming hours.
And yet there is some good to be gained from this outcome if one invokes the German concept of schadenfreude, which means taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.
Because Philadelphia lost, we can celebrate the fact that:
- We won’t have to hear gloating from CNBC resident loudmouth Jim Cramer and all his fellow Philly Eagles fans on that cable financial network who have spent the past couple of weeks reminding us how great the Eagles are.
- We here in Johnstown, AKA Filthydelphia West, presumably won’t have to deal with property damage from unruly Eagles victory celebrations.
- Also Filthydelphia West won’t need to make plans for a victory parade in coming days.
- Steelers fans won’t have to endure bragging Eagles fans boasting about a Super Bowl win.
- Our governor Josh Shapiro, who as attorney general ran the last presidential election in this state the way the refs ran the Super Bowl, gets to stare at a Chiefs flag in his office for the next week after having lost one of those silly governors’ bets.
- The color green now can be used to identify meat gone bad, or St. Patrick’s Day beer, and not be mistaken for an endorsement of the Eagles.
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