Avoiding Ron and NFL Divisional Round

 

For the second consecutive flight I have been placed next to a passenger which cannot sit still, every four seconds a herky jerky move like he is unable to be comfortable in silence or a stationary position.  When I was in elementary school these children were called “hyperactive” and dosed up with some kind of downer to make them less disruptive in class.  As an adult, people can mask this behavior if they somehow fail upwards as being “on-the-go” or perhaps have their casually laughing wife say something like “Oh, you know Ron… He just can’t sit still.” as if that were some sort of virtue.  In the suburbs guys like this can blend in, intently running their leaf blowers and power washers, whatever they have to do to not sit quietly in their own minds.

I have a theory that the rise of smart phones has created an epidemic of these people, unable to go more than a few moments without some kind of stimulus for their brains.  Maybe this hyperactive trait had always been there and now it’s been exacerbated by a steady regimen of dopamine hits from quick videos of guys getting hit in the nuts and girls in yoga shorts stretching.  It could also be the rise of the coffee chain culture where maybe this dude is just speeding his dick off from a quad shot Venti Pike delivered via suppository for faster intake.  “Ron?  Ron?  Quad Pike Venti?  Ron?  Yes, can you step over here onto the plastic tarp?  Your drink order is ready.”

It could also be from dwelling in a world of apps and online portals that have just fried people’s brains out.  I spent 90 minutes yesterday trying to check into a flight in which Frontier Airlines had constructed the absolute perfect electronic maze.  Log onto the app with your Frontier Miles number.  Password not recognized.  Forget your password?  Click the button to have a link to set a new password.  No email arrives.  Go to the website.  Chat with our AI assistant.  What’s the problem?  I’m happy to help.  Explain the problem.  Have you tried to log onto our app?  Connect to representative.  Hello, I am happy to help.  What’s the problem?  Explain the problem.  Have you tried the app?  That’s the problem.  So sorry.  I have re-set your password in the app.  Log onto the app.  Unexplained error.  Unable to log in.  Please try later.  Log on with your Frontier miles number.  Unexplained error.  And back around.  Have you tried our app?

I am hoping to dive in Mexico, something I haven’t been able to do for a number of years now as I have been traveling almost exclusively to wine producing regions.  Of course, there is some sort of risk with my exciting new heart status, but there are worse places to die than in a light blue ocean surrounded by colorful fish.  My doctor told me a story of a guy that had a heart attack at depth.  He had to do a safety stop waiting for his blood to decompress as he absorbed the attack.  He then flopped back onto the boat and chugged back to the port.  He went to the airport to get back to the Clinic to receive care and somehow lived after an intense surgery.  Glass half full, he somehow lived after all that.  Glass half empty, maybe he should have just removed his regulator and slowly sunk to the bottom.  I am hoping to have a couple low to medium depth dives in nice reef locations where I can weightlessly float around, not feeling the need to move every seven seconds like Ron over there to my right.  

My fear is that Ron will wind up being at my hotel.  I will then fixate on Ron, watching him get up to go to the breakfast buffet, sit down, get up again, swiftly walking across the room in his Sketchers and backwards baseball hat, checking his Apple Watch, grabbing a plate for a muffin he doesn’t need or want.  I overspent on the hotel as usually this type of guy is very concerned about securing accommodations that qualify as “a great deal”.  This will then enable him the opportunity to engage unlucky guests at the swimup bar with unwanted conversations like “Great weather, huh?  Way better than it is back at home.  We’re from Cleveland.  Yeah, had some snow right when we left.  We usually don’t come down here this time of year, but I got A GREAT DEAL on the Apple Vacations website.”  I have found that the extra $300-$500 a week tax to price yourself into a higher end place in Mexico is usually worth the payoff to leave Ron at the airport.  Even though I know I will not allow myself into the proximity of Ron to potentially get ensnared in his conversational web, a $100 a day payment on top of the normal cost will be well worth the insurance cost of me not staring at that guy monitoring his behavior, which is of course MY poison I bring to this party.  You’ve got to understand what you’re made of and deal with the reality of the situation.

As expected, Ron was shuttled off to a discount hotel chain at the Mexican Airport which is like arriving in Saigon in 1969.  “Hey GI?  You need taxi?”  A small mini van whisked off to check into the 5 Apple (whatever that means) hotel location where I had the worst glass of sparkling wine I’ve had since a sekt at the Hamburg Art Museum café in the mid 2010s.  I fell into a deep sleep where I had a dream that I had been unconscious and woke up to find myself baked into a large vase with thick clay walls.  The only part of me exposed was my head, with my neck being contained by the top rim of the vase like an amphora collar.  My body was constricted inside the vase in a half squatting position where it was impossible to stand or sit due to the constriction of the chalky interior of the vessel.  My thighs burned but if I relaxed them, the weight of my body would cause great pain on my jaw being jammed against the rim of the opening.  I was in a large room with a tile floor totally alone.  It was silent and with a growing darkness like late dusk.  Across the room I saw a stairway heading down.  If I could figure a way to knock the vase over, maybe I could roll over to fall down the stairs where hopefully the impact would break the vase and free me from the prison.  I rocked my body back and forth and felt the vase gradually topple over and begin to roll.  The floor and the ceiling alternated as I helplessly rolled towards the staircase.  Suddenly I stopped short of the stairs, the vase having rolled into a corner of the room where my face looked down at the tile, trapped into looking at the floor in an uncomfortable position forever.  Then I woke up with the vivid memory.  

I don’t know what you know about dream interpretation, but here’s what I took out of it.  I better get on the Denver Broncos.  Does the vase represent the pass rush of the Broncos D line?  I dunno.  Maybe.  I am not bought in on this Bills team.  Maybe I’m pissed that they beat the Jags last week in what was a great game that I wish I could pin on my personal nemesis Trevor Lawrence, but I can’t.  I keep thinking about that Eagles game where Philly bullied the Bills line and made Josh Allen ineffective (though admittedly he almost pulled it out).  This divisional round is usually where good defense (and a rested one with Denver) beats a good offense.  I am on Denver -1 at home.

I just can’t see how the 49ers can keep losing star players and keep winning.  Kittle is done with an Achilles, approximately the 47th such Achilles tendon injury of this NFL season.  When I was a kid watching football, NOBODY got an Achilles injury.  Now it’s a couple guys a week.  I have no idea why this is, but it takes a good two years to come back from it, which means Kittle is probably done as a premier NFL player.  When you look at this game, the decision is this:  Do you think Sam Darnold will fuck this game up for Seattle?  Darnold has led his team to two (2) consecutive 13 win seasons, and yet it’s hard to shake the “I’m seeing ghosts” NY Jets Sam Darnold.  Even that kid in Oregon was like “Fuck that, I’m staying in school.  I don’t want to be a Jet.”.  I think the Seahawks run, run, run and keep it away from Darnold to win it on his own.  Again, well rested team.  I’m thinking about teasing this game with that 7 point spread making it Seattle -1.

That means I need a dance partner.  I can logically go Chicago +10 or Houston +9.5 as NE +2.5 makes no sense.  I think the Rams are the best team in the NFL.  However, I just saw Stafford sprain his index finger on this throwing hand last week, and now he is going to have to pass the ball in single digit temps in Chicago.  I’m seeing a whole bunch of “Matt Stafford hasn’t won a game in under 40 degrees since 1912” shit which concerns me.  He also was having epidurals for his back in late August.  That dude can tough out whatever happens, but this fucking Bears team is some kind of Team Of Destiny.  I just need them to keep it close on a shitty night in Chicago.  Seattle -1/Chicago +10

Current Record:  36-32