Insert Yourself Trying Not to Paint Me

By Tom Hagy

"I think this might be permanent."

Are you blindly cheering for one side? Relentlessly digging in? Stubbornly sticking to an orthodoxy, perhaps. Or are you obdurately refusing to bend even to facts while desperately clawing for information that proves your point?

If so, it means you have made your final decision: your team is always right; the other team is always wrong.  It means you’ve decided to stop thinking. That you will stand your ground until you find you’re standing in a sinkhole, when a step to the left or right, forward or backward, could have kept you in the sunshine and not dining on muck. You will unfriend friends, disown relatives, leave a party early. I guess we’re a giant study in anthropology.  We must be on a team, which means we must have an opponent.  Go team!

Insert screaming crowd all dressed in a singular color rooting for people dressed in matching costumes.

We crave adversity and, apparently, coordinated outfits. It’s why the majority continues to crap on minorities. In the U.S. it is especially true in our view of African Americans, who are disproportionately represented in prisons, on welfare rolls, and in the death-from-violence sweepstakes: because they clearly are (being black and all) on an “other” team.  Surely no one thinks they’re genetically predisposed to committing crime, seeking help, or being shot.  Do they?  We love them in the arena, but not next door. Cross the street now. You just never know! Never mind the fact that he is a lawyer going to pick up his daughter at school. We quickly forget how our grandparents were treated for being Italians, Poles, Irish, Jews, Catholics, Witches, Accordion Players, etc., or just plain odd.  We love our teams! Go team!

Insert roaring crowd, many of whom shake giant mittens, toot plastic horns and don comical hats made of party snacks and animal parts.

It’s why we’re so anxious to be red or blue.  It’s why I have seen heated arguments over the Battle to End All Battles – Apple vs. PC. It’s why a kid from Michigan, for fear of property damage and personal injury, can’t drive his own car with Michigan plates to Ohio for the OSU / Michigan game, and the other way around. People get beat up over football games. Football games! Go team!

Insert three shirtless guys whose belly fat is adorned with bright jiggling letters that inevitably bleed into their team-branded britches from sweat and spillage of substandard lagers.

Some who will read this might even wonder if they should “like” the post because they aren’t sure if my message is liberal or conservative.  (I promise you this: I'm not sure in the least.) If your mind is made up for all eternity you might as well give your brain to science now for all the good it’s doing.  At least you will enjoy some extra storage space. Go team!

Insert men in tight pants, women in tiny skirts, making fun of a young man who wants to be in the ballet.

I am changing my name to Sanctimonious Monk.

And . . . scene.

P.S. There is one unifying struggle out there.  We all find cable companies evil.  And yet, we continue to pay them AND watch their damn commercials. Except those of you who don’t even own a television (“I only read books”).  Your superior attitude both annoys me and shames me.  

Trombone player in gorilla suit exits stage left.