At this very moment I’m planning my escape from work early by pulling the fire alarm. My son’s football game is two hours away (if there is no traffic), so I need to leave early. Alternatively, I might also just email my boss and ask if I can leave early. I haven’t decided yet.

My son’s football career started with such promise 8 years ago. We had just moved to Utah in August, so we thought it was too late to sign up, since they had already practiced for weeks, and they were playing their first game on Saturday. They told us to show up and he could watch from the sidelines, since he didn’t have a jersey or pads yet. We showed up fully expecting that he would just sit and watch from the sidelines. When they saw how big he was, they immediately changed their minds, and found him some pads, someone else’s jersey and told him to get into the game and start blocking for the quarterback. By the end of the game, he’d played most of the game on both the offensive and defensive lines.

It was then that we all knew he had a future in football. Even when he was younger, and we played kill the carrier in the backyard I could tell he would be a great defensive end. He hated when he was the guy that had the ball and everyone was chasing him, but when someone else had the ball, he was laser focused on the ball carrier and loved tackling them.

From that moment forward, we started involuntarily started spending all our money on our son’s football. Some people spend their money on shopping, travel or fun hobbies like boating. We looked at is as an investment. He, like every other kid in America has this ever slim hope that if he can get a D1 scholarship, he can get an NIL (Name, Image, Likeness deals athletes can now make to make money) that will help him with his future. Unfortunately, it’s also our only chance at a retirement plan. If that doesn’t work, well, you’ll see a 90-year-old Bitter Ben welcoming you to Walmart. You really don’t want that. There’s no pressure on him though.

In the bad old days of me growing up, college football didn’t have these NIL deals. Kids could only rely on their scholarship to get them through college, so they had to live like poplars. They also didn’t have this recent thing called the Transfer Portal. In my day, if a player committed to a team they would have to stay with them for the four or five years they were in college. If they wanted to transfer to another team, they had to sit out a year, and lose a year of eligibility, etc. Recently, though college football invented this new thing called the Transfer Portal, which sounds a lot like a way that Harry Potter used to get from 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging to Hogwarts.

It’s not quite that, but pretty close actually. The transfer portal is a magical place where college football players can switch teams for just about any reason. A player can say I don’t want to play for that team, because they were filled with a bunch of dumb dumbs, and they want to play for another team of dumb dumbs. Either that, or they didn’t get enough playing time, or they didn’t like the coaches, or the cafeteria was dumb, or the girls weren’t quite as pretty as they were hoping.

Regardless, they were just trying to figure out how to create as much animosity with their fans as the pros were. They haven’t quite succeeded there yet, but you know how it is. College is always the training grounds for students to become professionals, so they will always be one level under the pros. We shouldn’t expect them to be as good at creating animosity with their fans as well the pros.

If pro and college sports are allowed to do this, then I think it’s only fair that we humans should be able to implement the Transfer Portal (let’s call it a Transfer AND Trade Portal) for every other aspect of life as well.

It’s time to allow us to put people in the Transfer and Trade Portal for just about any reason we want to. For instance, say my son doesn’t quite work out like we were hoping and doesn’t get a D1 scholarship and an NIL deal that will help me retire. If I start seeing that he isn’t bringing in the ROI that I want, I believe that I should be able to put him in the transfer portal. Then I can trade him for a kid that would bring in that NIL deal that I’m looking for, so I don’t have to be a greeter at Walmart. I love him, but it looks like I might have to let him go for business reasons.

Based on some recent dealings with my family, I might also be looking to put up some family members in the portal. They used to be great, but with age, they’ve started to lose value to me (and I would argue I’ve lost value to them). I might be interested in trading them for less dramatic family members. I’m sure there are some people in the portal that would better fit my needs. I’m sure there are some great families out there looking for some let’s call them, ill-fitting family members that would be better suited for another family.

The portal would be great for me to get rid of my stuff in the basement too. The World Wide Transfer and Trade Portal (the WWTTP) would be a great way for me to trade some of the crap in my basement for some things I actually need to live, like video games that are coming out soon.

I believe that this WWTTP would solve this crappy economy we have, because we’d stop getting money in the middle, and just trade things we don’t want for things we do want. Value is in the eye of the beholder right? If they can just easily transfer basketball players, football players, and Pokemon, then we should be able to transfer people or leftover junk in our basements for people and things we need.

After I finish this post, and before I do any work today, I’ll just ask ChatGPT to build me a WWTTP machine that allows me to transfer things metaphysically so we can have an actual machine that does this. I’ll charge 2 video game percents (instead of 2% of money) and we’ll be off to the races. I’m actually surprised none of you geniuses have thought of this idea before. Either way, don’t plan on stealing the idea, because if you do, I’ll sue you for a trillion video game credits.

I’m also willing to trade words and Giftures so hit me up in the comments if you have any words that I might want…

I’m currently planning my escape from work…

Either that…

I’m still working on what might be…

My son’s football career started out…

He was tackling kids…

It was then, that I realized…

So we involuntarily invested all our money…

We figured that he would get an NIL (meaning Name, Image, Likeness, and not zero) deal…

Because if he doesn’t…

In college football there is a thing called a transfer portal…

If college football players can do it…

Why can’t we have a World Wide Transfer and Trade Portal…

ARRRGGGHHHHHH

Bitter Transfer Portal Ben