The Football

Oh, those poor Chargers.

Ach.

Actually, when Jacquie and Bill's San Diego boy was a wee lad he called both the Chargers and the Padres the Chardres.

Clever, right?? So, of course, we call both teams the Chardres too.

Oh, those poor Chardres.

I'm not much of a football fan; I never have been. But I grew up in a Giants household and I have sisters who are mad for the love of the game, and I have a mom who is the most fun -- bar none -- person to watch TV sports with ("Kill him!"), and my dad is the grandaddy Jidoo of all the sports fans in my family (although he doesn't yell "Kill him!" at the tv screen), so I do appreciate football, I do. Especially during the playoffs.

And this weekend was no exception, although, much to my chagrin, the team I was most rooting for lost.

Oh, those poor Chardres.

So now we're down to the Final Four. Who are we possibly supposed to root for now? Let's have a look, shall we?

Last week my sister Mary Beth emailed that she was "so sick of that fat freakin' bigmouth coach of the Jets." I couldn't agree more. He is fat and he is ugly. And he's a bigmouth. And he's really ugly. Plus, his name is Rex. And although I like the letter x, Rex is a dog's name. J-e-t-s? No.

Peyton Manning is a goober, let's face it. And Indiana takes an annoyingly long time to get through when you're trying to get to Chicago. And I think car racing is a colossal waste of time so I couldn't possibly root for anything Indianapolis-related. Colts? Not so much.

I can't really root for Brett Favre, not after what he did to my friend Jill and all her cheese-head-compatriots. ("Root" looked wrong so I looked it up. The definition is "to encourage by cheering." I love that.) Betrayed them, that's what he did, the rat bastid. But man, the guy has an arm, huh? And he's 40. I really like that about him. But still. I think of my girl Jill and I say no. Sorry Vikings. Sorry Brett Favvvvvre. I am not going to encourage you by cheering for you.

And so. The New Orleans Saints. Magical, mystical, downbeaten, alive New Orleans. The Crescent City. Po' Boys and jazz and hurricanes (I meant the drink but I guess that's appropriate however you look at it). Plus, their logo is the fleur-de-lis which is the stylized version of the purple iris, my favorite flower and the symbol of Saint Joan of Arc, who is everybody's favorite badass saint. Talk about your Knight in Shining Armor.

And there we have it. Go Saints!!