Personal Foul

I'm a fairly intelligent person. As a Gemini, I have a pretty good shot at understanding things both left-brained and right-brained. And yet, at the tender age of 41, there are several things I'm convinced I will never fully comprehend:

1) The cosmos. Carl Sagan, I'm sorry. I try, but I get overwhelmed and then...I surrender. I know I'm just a speck of dust. But man, I cannot comprehend what's going on OUT THERE;

2) Reproduction. Oh, I understand the mechanics of it. All the way down to the cellular level. But when all is said and done, YOU HAVE A HUMAN BEING GROWING INSIDE YOU!!

3) NFL Football.

I'm quite confident I could understand the intricacies of nuclear physics before I understood this game -- or Americans' affinity for it. My girlfriend can rattle off teams and stats and who bet on whom and who she needs to win and who needs to lose and the coaches and the players and the refs and the history and the rules and the and the and the and the FOR.EV.ER.

And all I see is a game that should take about 20 minutes extended into 3 hours with a bunch of horse's asses running around celebrating every blasted play they make. Congratulations, you did what you're paid to do. Now pipe the f*ck down!

Can you imagine if every sport did this? If every baseball player started fist-pumping and chest-thumping every time he caught a ball? If hockey players started celebrating every stolen puck? If women's volleyball players started screaming to the spectators and demanding congratulations after every point?

Yes wiseasses, women's volleyball has spectators! ;)

Anyhoo, I don't mean to piss on anyone's testosterone parade. I know I'm in the minority here and I'm just discussing my ignorance of the game and its appeal.

But I can't help but wonder where we'd wind up if we Americans invested a fraction of the energy spent on NFL football on our jobs or education or inventions... Maybe we'd go back to being known for more than professional sports, music, and entertainment. I'm just sayin'...