Okay, I’m going to confess a big secret. I’ve got a guilty pleasure. It's football. I’m addicted to it. It’s such a Wisconsin thing. Back in New York I could ignore it. My beloved Packers and Badgers weren’t constantly available. They weren’t the headlines in the local papers, you could only see them on TV if they were playing a New York team or were featured on Monday Night Football and they weren’t ever discussed on the radio which I rarely listened to in New York anyway. But now I’m like a kid in a candy shop devouring every Wisconsin sports page, glued to the TV on Saturdays for the Badgers and Sundays for the Packers. I even joined a football pool with fifty other friends of my brother-in-law who now had me following the entire NFL and AFC outcomes. And worst of all I got sucked into ESPN radio which blares out of my mother’s Ford Escort speakers both front and back during my constant driving in a city where it’s impossible to get anywhere by foot. So as I cart Emmy to school, Rick to work and my mom to elder daycare I subject them all to “Mike and Mike in the Morning” and “The Herd”. I love Mike and Mike. They’re forever discussing the defensive moves of Atari Bigby, A.J. Hawk, and Clay Matthews or the receiving acrobatics of Nick Toon, players whose names gave them no other option than becoming football athletes. Then there’s Colin Cowherd, the ultra-conservative, deranged host of the nine to one ESPN time slot, “The Herd”. This guy knows how to push all my buttons. Dissin’ the Big Ten, telling me the Packers won’t get beyond round one of the play-offs, and then going off on tangents about how all conservatives die happy and liberals depress themselves into early graves. WHAT!!! That’s when I have to go back to my old standby, Wisconsin Public Radio, and listen to scintillating conversations on backyard bird counting and how to choose a wood fired boiler. WPA will get me through a good two to four minutes before boredom forces me to go back to Mr. Cowherd. Yesterday’s off-track train wreck derailed me completely. His triad went on about the correlation between serial killers and the name “Lee”. Piss me off, Cowherd!
“Ya know some people are fascinated with hot cars, and some are into the whole Vegas thing, keep that putter in your golf bag Tiger. Well, I can’t help it but I’m really all over this serial killer thing. Did you ever know how many of them are named “Lee”, It’s just weird, don’t ya think?”
This just pushed my buttons to the point I almost had to pull off the road and start punching the steering wheel.
“Come on, Lee Harvey Oswald goes and shots JFK. That Zodiac Killer, what was his name? Oh ya, Arthur “LEE” Allen. Ooh, ooh then there’s Robert Lee Yates, that one up in Spokane and Lee Boyd Malvo, the DC sniper.” He was giddy by this point. What the heck any of this had to do with sports was beyond me until he started attributing stats to these guys.
“Did you know that the first female serial killer was named Aileen “Lee” Wuornos and Ted Bundy hid out in Lee County and the biggest killer of them all was Henry Lee Lucas. I’m just saying…If you’re thinking of naming your kid “Lee” you might want to think again”. Now I’m thinking the whole world is going start jumping to the other side of street every time I walk by. I should be thankful I’m in Wisconsin where walking the streets happens only rarely and not back in New York where I walked everywhere.
“Now let me ask you this, all you employers. Say you’re out there hiring a secretary and all things being equal, your two candidates are Nancy Lee and Betty Sue, which one are you gonna hire? I’m going with Betty Sue if ya know what I mean”. As if finding a job hasn’t been hard enough, it now looks like I’m going to have to introduce myself by my real name.
“Hi, I’m LeRoy.”
Will the harassment ever end.
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