The Morning After

In our house, we're pretty big sports fans.  Our loyalties are sometimes complicated (if not for the Pats being their opponent, we'd have been all about the Giants yesterday, for example; I grew up a Mets fan but am also a die-hard Sox fan ... these kinds of things often need some 'splainin' for people who've not known us our entire lives).  But one thing we try to always be is gracious:  never sore losers, never obnoxious winners.  We are not holier than thou, though -- we definitely celebrate and sulk, as fits the occasion.  We just try to be relatively tame in either direction.  That is certainly not what I am seeing on Facebook this morning, and it's disappointing.  (I thought about posting something about that there, but considering I'd be talking about people whose statuses I can see, and that means they are my friends, that was a little too passive-aggressive for me.  Not my style.  Plus then you end up having people think you're talking about them when you weren't, and you create a big old mess over something silly.)  But my goodness, there are lots of ugly winners (and sore losers) out today!  And I think I can safely say they don't read my blog, so I wanted to get this little vent out of my system.  Thanks for reading along.

What especially cracks me up is the handful of people who are downright taunting their friends (whose statuses I can't see, of course).  The whole "you-let-me-have-it-all-week-and-now-I-get-to-rub-it-in-your-face" stuff.  blah blah blah.  I'm just saying, don't you think you should direct that to the person in question, and not everyone in the world who can see your status?  I wish some of these people could hear themselves, because they are putting faces to the idea of the "ugly New York sports fan" and that makes me sad, since I did, after all, grow up in NY. 

Anyway, last I checked, I rooted for the Pats.  That's all I did.  I didn't play for them; I didn't choose the roster or pick the plays; I didn't even go to the game for the team to hear my cheers.  I simply rooted for them.  And it stinks when your team loses, and I was definitely bummed -- especially to lose to the Giants, again -- but come on, folks. Your Giants loyalty was no more important than the fact that I wore my "lucky" shirt or bought CAM an "unlucky" balloon (it's a fact:  when I buy the kids a Pats balloon, we lose that game, and I actually contemplated NOT buying CAM a balloon yesterday because of that!)  God doesn't love Tim Tebow or Eli Manning or Tom Brady any more (or less) than anyone else.  And really, in my book, there's nothing wrong with a little bragging rights and friendly chiding, but what's on Facebook today goes well past that.  Hey, we lost a bet and are about to host a Giants snowman for a week!  We also had to fly a stinkin' YANKEES flag this past Fall.  But it's all in good fun and there's only minimal swearing associated with it, and it sure as %@$#@! isn't on Facebook.  (One of my friends had a status last night of five f-bombs.  That was it.  I actually understood that.  Venting.  Not calling anyone out.  Not even really saying anything.  So I'm not calling out swearing in general.  Just the pointed taunts.)

Alright, so I can get down off my little soapbox here.  Rant over.  But I had to say it somewhere because Facebook is out of control today and I just don't get it.  Expressing frustration or excitement in a status I totally get, and would have done myself.  But the crass taunting and/or ranting over something where you had nothing to do with the outcome, not so much.  In fact, WHM has on his Patriots hat today.  Hopefully we're modeling for our kids how to be gracious sports, win or lose.

--Jen

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