Last Friday, I pretended I was sick so I could leave work early. Normally when I pretend I’m sick I just go home and play video games and sleep on the couch. But this time, it was for unselfish reasons. Instead of being lazy, I actually intentionally decided to go outside and sit in the cold for 4 hours. Before you accuse me of doing something like going camping or doing something good for my soul, you can stop that right now.

Nope. The reason I went outside to sit in the cold and pay $25 to do it, was to watch my son sit on the sidelines of his football team losing. Yeah, the other team was bigger, and faster, and had more money and used it to recruit some of our players, but they won, unfair and unsquare. They should have been in a higher division, and some of the players looked 20 years old, but we won’t fault them for that. And I’m sure if my son played in the game they would have won. But I’m not at all bitter that I had to sit in the cold to witness the massacre. Actually, I would have been more satisfied if they had been slaughtered in the game, because then my son would have been in the game and the scouts would have seen the utter destruction, wreckage and annihilation he would have administered to the other team. But instead he stood and we sat, in utter frustration as our fingers and arms and faces froze in bitterness.

Positive people would have said stuff like, they should be proud they made the semi-finals, and they gave it a really big effort against a team that had already beat them earlier in the year. And it was close until the 4th quarter. But a bitter dad would have countered with some bitterness. Despite being a really good team, they played the #1 and #7 teams in 6A, and they played the #1 and #2 team in 5A and the #1 and #2 teams in 5A should have been in 6A. And their team was technically small enough to be a 4A. In other words, we were a bunch of David’s playing against a bunch of Goliath’s except we didn’t have any stones and the Goliath’s had armor covering the one weak spot on his forehead. Because the local area football association allowed Goliath to against weaker opponents and armored Goliath with better uniforms.

What I’m most bitter about is that my son being serious about sports is triggering a sports addiction relapse for me. All it would have taken was a single drop of sports to pull me back in, but he poured a whole glass of sports and dared me to drink it. The biggest problem with being a sports addict is not the sport itself, but the side game that I and a lot of other sports fans play all the time.

It’s called the “What If” game, and it is the most brutal form of torture you will ever experience. Being waterboarded has nothing on the “What If” game of torture. It can haunt your very soul forever. Ask any real sports fan that has been following a team for more than 10 years and ask them these two simple questions. What is your favorite moment? What was your most tortured moment?

You will not only get one favorite, but many favorites. And they will recall them with the wistfullness of someone describing their wedding day, their first pay raise and their first kiss all into one glorious moment or 12.

But when you ask them their most tortured moment, get ready for specific time, specific year, and a backstory as detailed as a Geroge R.R. Martin story. They will tell you what it smelled like, what it tasted like, the feeling in the room, the mood of his family, the model number of the TV and the 12th of 53rd person on the bench. A full-bodied tattoo will never be embbeded as deep into the body, as tortured sports moment will be seared into the brain of a sports addict. They will give you every detail of that moment and you will never hear an introvert talk more in his life than when you ask him about his most tortured sports moment.

One of my moments goes back to 1990, before many of the people I know were even born. I probably remember this moment more than when my children were born or my wedding day. I was a huge fan of the San Antonio Spurs and David Robinson was coming off of one of the best rookie years since Michael Jordon. It was the 1990 NBA Western Conference Second Round. It went down to a Game 7 in Portland. The Spurs were poised to make the Conference finals, which would have been quite a feat since they didn’t even make the playoffs the year before. They were in overtime and were one point behind with 30 second to go in the game. The Spurs passed the ball around and were trying to find someone open. At the top of the key, Rod Strickland got the ball and instead of waiting for Sean Elliot to cut, the whipped the ball over his head and Sean Elliot missed it. Portland got the steal and the game was over. The replay in slow motion still plays in my head to this day.

That where all the “What If” torture starts to come in. What if he had just waited for him one more second. What if Robinson had taken the shot before he passed to Strickland. What if…what if…what if.

As a Spurs fan, I can hardly complain. They went to the playoffs 29 years out of 30 and won 5 championships. But I will always remember the tortured what ifs way more than the victories.

That is just one tiny example of the tortured Spurs moments that I’ve experienced. There’s the .4 Laker Game (which my brother and I still discuss to this day), the Ginobili foul on Nowitzki, and Ray Allen corner 3. These sports moments are still deeply imbedded into my brain and will never leave as long as I live and probably many years after that. They might study my brain and not nothing but a few recordings of sports moments that won’t leave the brain no matter how hard they try to cut them out.

Joy from Inside Out could never memory hole that or a dozen other bitter sports moments out of my brain, no matter how hard she tried. Those things aren’t going anywhere.

I just wanted to thank my son for going back into sports, because now I’m going to have a whole new generation of bitter sports moments that will be embedded into my brain until the end of time. Thanks a lot for that buddy.

If only these Giftures would embed themselves into all your brains, then I would be as popular as sports. Just another reason to be bitter…

Today, on BBB, we are going to talk about…

I guess some people…

For my wife…

For my son…

For my daughter…

Being stuck in a party with no ride…

Some people think that the cold…

Some people think going outside…

Joy could work full-time…

But she would fail…

These moments runs in my brain on repeat…

This is one that Joy will never…

If Genghis Khan himself was in charge of my torturing, and tried anything else on me, he wouldn’t have the same effect as if he played all my worst sports moments on repeat. So thanks a lot for making me put these bitter moments in Gifture form, because now I just want to delete this post. You guys are jerks.

ARRRRGGGHHHHH

Bitter Sports Torture Ben