On being a sportsfan.

I realized tonight as a team actually managed to win a Superbowl on nothing more than THREE exceptional plays that me being a sportsfan has absolutely nothing to do with pleasure, entertainment, intrigue, or any other reason that others might give for watching sports. I have determined, through watching a team I AM NOT EVEN A FAN OF lose a game, that sports is actually a form of penance. It is a way for humans to torture their over-indulgent selves because there no longer exists anything else to torture or frighten us. I say this because I realized that if my favorite team is not playing, then I choose to favor a team, and more often than not I tend to follow the team that is most likely to lose. People call this "rooting for the underdog." Everyone always talks about how it is a common practice for humans to "always root for the underdog." The truth is, the underdog is a skinny, three-legged mutt that spends its days hobbling around a trainyard getting kicked in the ribs by over-alled Huck Finn lookalikes and having its food stolen by hobos half-blind from homemade moonshine.
We sit our asses down on couches and laugh at beer ads and shovel pizza down our throats. Our heart of hearts knows how vicious this is. How bad we should be feeling for doing shit like this. For not making the world a better place. For not curing cancer. For not developing a method to make all electronic and communication equipment run on the same standard for wiring so that we can simplify and improve modern technology. We choose to subconsciously torture ourselves for behaving badly. For commiting acts of sloth. We pick the underdog and we pour our hearts into that team simply because we've been bad and we need a spanking. This spanking is dealt by made-up turmoil from the loss of an inconsequential football game.