Open Letter to a Pedantic Killjoy

Open Letter To The Guy Elaine Brought to Monday Night Football

Dude, I know we issued an open invitation. I know the Vikings were playing, and you don’t own a TV. But when you enter an established group of friends and try to “hang out”, it’s probably best to listen and learn for a while before you break out the “pedantic killjoy” routine. Perhaps your parents read you George Will columns instead of bedtime stories as a kid. Maybe you don’t realize that the rest of us are pretty intelligent, too. Maybe our spontaneous enthusiasm for sports actually is inferior to your emotionless droning explication. How someone can know so much about a sport he clearly detests is beyond me.

Regardless, we will not be inviting you back. Elaine has kind of half-heartedly defended you, demanding that we tell her exactly what you did that was so bad. So here goes the list of grievances:

1. We know you went to Michigan with Tom Brady. We know you were his tutor for freshman English. We know that without your help, he probably wouldn’t have passed. This does NOT give you the right to say “I taught him everything he knows” every time the guy throws a touchdown pass. Especially when the rest of us are rooting for the other team.

2. During team introductions, it is customary for each player to mention the college where he played before being drafted, even if he left school without a degree. We are now fully aware of your contention that only actual graduates of an institution should be allowed to call themselves alumni. If this is what allows the night manager at PetSmart to feel superior to millionaire athletes, go on with your bad self.

3. During every commercial break, you rolled your eyes, sighed loudly, and said “THIS is why I don’t own a television!”. If you hate commercials so much, why not get up and get me another beer, you douche? Nobody glued your ass to the couch.

4. The halftime highlight show is entertainment. The Bengals’ Chad Johnson is an entertaining player. You became his antithesis by gravely informing us that his jersey patch should have read “Ochenta Cinco” because “Ocho Cinco” simply stands for the separate numbers eight and five. And when Brad said he liked Johnson’s “Touchdown Tango”, he really wasn’t looking for a lecture on the Tango’s origins in the brothels of Argentina, and when you correctly informed him that he was instead witnessing salsa dancing, you were about dos segundos from a beat-down.

5. The trick play that dare not speak its name came in the third quarter. We were ecstatic when our guys took a wide reciever hand-off and raced around the right end for a touchdown. I mean, crap, dude, you wait all game for something that exciting to happen! Nobody even called it a reverse, OK? But that didn’t stop you from drawing us a handy diagram so we could tell the difference between a reverse and an end-around. We’re really sorry about the rug-burns you acquired when Brian showed you the difference between a pancake block and a chop block. He played second-string at ‘Bama, so he takes this stuff pretty seriously.

6. Chris Berman went to an Ivy-league school. If he rejected your emailed suggestion that he name the Vikings cornerback “Fred Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act”, we’re pretty sure it’s not because he didn’t get the reference.

7. Guinness on the shag carpet. Not cool.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ll understand that we bear you no further ill will. We will even concede your assertion that “soccer is the REAL football”, in the interests of keeping the peace. Just come up with some excuse if Elaine is ever misguided enough to invite you over again. We’d hate for Brian to have to demonstrate “clipping”, “spearing” or “illegal hands to the face”.

Sincerely,

The Monday Night Football Crowd

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This post is featured in the Blogodome at Deadspin.com today. Welcome new readers! Check the archives for other sports posts - I’ll see you in the forums.

And, in a surprise move, I have been linked to Splendora on the first day of December. Usually I get hits from the sports sites - this may be the first time I’ve been linked under style advice. But if you’re laughing, I’m lovin’ it!