Why The Fuck Do I Do This To Myself? (Scheduled Post)

The only way -- the only way -- I was going to be able to make any money off of the big bracket pool I'm a part of was for Kentucky to keep winning.  If they lost, either on Sunday or even in Saturday's Final Four, I'm fucked.  But if kept winning, I would be in the money, and potentially a lot of money.

But I still couldn't chance it.  I was at a Buffalo Wild Wings trying to concentrate on the Notre Dame-Massachusetts-Lowell regional final instead of the Wildcats' Elite 8 matchup vs. North Carolina on the big screen next to it.  I really, really wanted to see the hockey game, but goddammit, I couldn't help but be riveted to the opening tipoff of what came to be my make-or-break basketball game.  So around the time I had to go home for dinner, and after the River Hawks scored the go-ahead goal in the Third Period, I left B-Dubs, went home, was lucky to just watch the news alongside my parents for dinner, then went to my bedroom and fell asleep.

(By the way, I didn't catch the conclusion of the hockey game.  But Notre Dame tied the game up a few minutes after Mass-Lowell scored and won in Overtime to advance to the Frozen Four.)

I actually managed to not come across the result of the South Regional Final through Monday morning.  Stayed off of sports websites and Twitter, and I managed to dodge what looked to be status updates from my college basketball friends on my Facebook Feed.  I usually read the sports pages whenever I need to take a brain break from my test scoring place, but Monday I avoided them.  (Ironically, there were, like, two separate copies of both Twin Cities papers on Monday.  Usually when I go there wanting to read the sports section, I can't find one.)

However, I knew at some point I would be spoiled as to the result.  I figured it would be after work at Victory 44, a place that serves a great hamburger but has a TV at the bar I thought would be tuned to ESPN.  And if it's not that, I think that I would have to know about it by Saturday, either through friends telling me I'm still in this thing or, at the very least, doing my Anti-Picks for the Final Four.

I braced myself that I would eventually know, but I decided that, if for no other reason than the administrator for either pool I'm in needs to talk to me about something, I might as well be a man and, if not actively seek out the score, not avoid it when I went through my Twitter and/or Facebook when the news popped up.  Actually I did avoid the first couple of tweets, but I figured it out when, of all things, LG had a sponsored tweet congratulating, sigh, North Carolina on winning by showing a captured GIF of its mascot, Ramses, opening up one of LG's new fridge with see-through doors.

I don't even get one of my Final Four picks right.  I had Duke, West Virginia, Kansas and Kentucky.  The Blue Devils got upset by South Carolina in the second round, the Mountaineers failed to hold off Gonzaga in the Sweet 16, the Jayhawks get their doors blown off by Oregon in the Regional Final, and now the Tar Heels.  Not even one???

I looked at my place in the huge pool.  After Friday, after Wisconsin snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Florida, I actually rose in the standings.  But that went to shit after the KU upset, and once UK lost, my bracket was completely fucking broken.  I checked the standings after all was revealed; I'm currently in the 90's, and I'm probably going to fall even further.  This year may not turn out to be my best finish ever in that pool after all.

Combine that with my embarrassing 0-fer in my frenemy's pool, where I just have to pick the Final Four teams, and I'm out $25.  Again.  And this is the time of year where I ask myself, again: Why the fuck do I do this to myself?  I always hope that my sports fandom will lead me to some insight that'll bring me riches and satisfaction to my ego, and nearly every single time (I have to admit that I won this Final Four pool about 14 or 15 years ago) I've been proven wrong.  Only this time me nailing Wisconsin's upset of Villanova and Xavier over Florida St. was a tease, a cruel tease to make me believe I was onto something.  I'm not.  I'm just a pathetic loser as I've been every single goddamn time I played this fucking game.

When will I ever goddamn learn to stop fucking playing?