Men At Their Best

I am watching the Colts absolutely destroy the Broncos in an AFC wildcard game, and I was reminded on the now concluded fantasy football season in which Spiral Stairs, Cotton (when he was not wrestling yaks), and I -- among others -- participated.

A staple of fantasy football is trash talking, and some of the discourse was both bizarre and sophisticated (comparatively speaking) and showed men (most married, several with children) at their best. Some anonymous highlights from the league message board (a secret place hidden from wives and girlfriends which is all "id") :

1. "The only thing juicier than my squad's performance last weekend is Audrey Tautou's sweet ass." -- you cannot say the clowns in our league were uncultured. Cultured sexists, yes, but certainly not uncultured sexists? How many people know who Audrey Tatou is?

2. The league was split up into two divisions. One featured the lawyers in the league, the others the academics (who frankly were more shrill than the lawyers if that is imaginable) in the league. After the lawyers had beaten all the academics in the playoffs, one lawyer wrote the following: "I note that the dithering intellectuals have all been dispatched by the more powerful and robust attorneys-at-law. No doubt this will free them to continue their important work penning abstruse essays on matters of purely academic interest. These intellectuals are far better suited to the leisure of the theory class than to the rough-and-tumble world of fantasy football -- such unpleasantness must be left to men of affairs."

3. This one does not speak for itself, but I have nothing to make it comprehensible: "And, xxxxxx, you indeed did "make" my team with Round 4533 of inept trades, but you made me in the same way Thulsa Doom made Conan. Sure, you got the best of me in the beginning, but I learned from this abuse, and then I came and stole your jewels, killed your snake, worked over your guards, and in the end I am going to chop your head off and show it to the assembled masses. " Note: this was written by one of the "intellectuals."

4. And this nugget from another league: "The sad thing is that you get exicted every year about a few early victories. Then inevitably, you lose the last bunch of games and fail to make the playoffs. Every year. If you don't realize it yet, let me make it clear for you: fate hates you."