Week 16: Chronicles of Trickeration!

I spent Christmas back home, six days to re-bond with family and revel in holiday festivities. Typically when I go home, my mother will designate a random mug for serving me tea for the duration of my stay. This last one is my favorite. Instead of advertising a medication for some disgusting genitourinary disease, it was a gift from a patient that said, on both sides in big block type, "CLASSY LADY."

I also experienced six days' worth of my mother's bon mots, among them:

On Pope Benedict XVI:
"At least [Pope John Paul II] was handsome. This one looks ready to die."

On the poor:
"You know that the government pays the heating bills for welfare recipients? So they just stay at home and turn their heat all the way up. That's a nice life."

On New Orleans:
"People ask me, what are you going to donate for Hurricane Katrina relief? And I say, not a penny. Let them work."

My parents approach the gift-giving season with a Tetris-like mentality of netting out the least accumulation. By the time I went home, they had already passed along the popcorn tins and fruitcakes (while saving, on express instruction from my brother and myself, the Ghirardelli and Godiva). All that was left for us to open on Christmas morning was a bag containing five resents. My mother had somehow misplaced the labels. I declared that whatever you unwrapped was yours. I ended up with a nice set of tealights. My mother got a wine glass. My father received a sixteen-month hummingbird calendar.

Our home exists in some weird land before time, lacking cable (ultimately they declined our gift), internet service, or blackberry reception. With a couple of video cameras, it could be "Frontier House" on PBS. In order to check my email, I would take one of my parent's cars after they had gone to sleep, drive out of our neighborhood, past the velociraptors, to the place in the county where my signal was strongest: the Wal-Mart parking lot.

(You may wonder, is it safe being out at two o'clock in the morning? Most people in town know my parents, and the only danger is in being recognized and trapped in an hour-long coversation. Patients always ask my parents about me and my brother, except now instead of being the one wanting to go to medical school, my brother is now the one on the teaching faculty at Harvard, and instead of being the one who wins the spelling bees, I'm now the one who cruises the Wal-Mart parking lot for gay prostitutes at two in the morning.)

Every year, we see wild rabbits running through our yard, every year, my mother reminisces about a red fox that used to live in the area and hunt them down, every year I start pounding my chest and declaring that this is "the big one," and every year, it goes right over my mother's head. Priceless.

'Who's taking care of your birds while you're away?' they asked (I've raised a pigeon ever since I discovered a nest on my porch this spring.). 'It's only the male,' I said, 'and I've trained him to find alternate food sources. The female flew away when she got big enough.' 'Why is that?' they asked. 'Oh, you know how women are," I told them. 'As soon as they find a man with his own place, they want to move in and start a family.' They didn't ask me much about my dating life this time around.

As some of my long-term readers know, I always try to take new music home with me. My parents enjoy it. Last year I discovered they really got into the Santana I left behind. Not the new duets stuff. Classic Carlos Santana. We spent the entire hour driving back from the airport listening to "Evil Ways" and "Black Magic Woman." Over and over again. I half-expected the house to smell like pot.

This time, I took my guitar and a bunch of music on my iPod. My father is a tabla player, a kind of Indian congo drum (think percussion in "Get Ur Freak On"), and I thought it would be fun to finally jam together. We went through the Counting Crows ("Rain King"), the Cranberries ("Linger"), Creedence ("Bad Moon Rising"), Allman Brothers ("Blue Sky"), Simon & Garfunkel ("Cecilia," or what I now realize may be the three most boring minutes ever written for a percussionist) and others, but where I thought we really tore down the house was Wyclef ("(If I Was) President"). After ripping through the final riff, I looked exultantly over at my father. His
take? "You haven't stopped playing the piano, have you?"

But I didn't say anything. Above all else, I am a Classy Lady.

Onto the game. . .

The only thing worth watching on ESPN's pre-game show is the announcers trying to pretend that they get Kenny Mayne's sense of humor.

This week, our crusaders of the gridiron, the Scourge of Dixie, America's Team, your CAROLINA PANTHERS hosted the Dallas Cowboys. Sitting atop the NFC South, a win would clinch the division and a playoff berth. However, Paul Tagliabue and the NFL officiating crew had other plans. . .

The Panthers came out fast and furious. A K John Kasay field goal, a WR Drew Carter (playing in only his second game ever!) TD, Panthers up 10-0! Miss Ellie is rolling over in her grave! The Cowboys squeaked back to tie it up, but another Kasay FG and a *perfectly legal blocked field goal* sent the Panthers into the locker rooms at half time with a commanding 13-10 lead. Stick a Southfork in them, the Cowboys are done!

It was during those ignominious minutes that a plan was hatched by NFL officials. The Panthers are too good, too powerful. Spike merchandise sales by sending Dallas into the playoffs. The Panthers must lose. By any means necessary.

At the start of the third, the Cowboys went up 17-13, but the Panthers were hardly concerned. Dallas was already gasping trying to keep up with the superior conditioning of the Tar Heel Terror Squad. As the Cajun Hannibal, QB Jake Delhomme, marched his team down the field, defeat hung like a flag at half-mast in the eyes of the Cowboy defenders. Then, in a miraculous play, WR Steve Smith recovered a fumble by Delhomme and ran it to the 39, only to be shoved hard to the ground by Dallas' Newman. The refs throw a flag, but is it on Newman? Has Sue Ellen ever refused a drink? Smith is ejected! Dallas is on its way to the playoffs.

Nice plan. Except someone forgot to tell the Panthers.

Despite the absence of their star player, the Panthers soldiered on, and in one of the top ten drives in NFL history, score the go-ahead touchdown with less than three minutes to play! What pluck! What verve! Officials huddled nervously. QB Kerry Collins took the Cowboys to FG range to send it to overtime. It's blocked! CB Ken Lucas, the unheralded off-season acquisition, blocks the kick! It's over! Panthers win!

Except. . .

Bedevilment! In underhandedness reminiscent of Cliff Barnes, officials call DE Julius Peppers and CB Lucas for roughing the kicker! New set of downs! With the odds clearly drawn against them, the Panthers tried to hold on, but the referees were too much--the Cowboys scored a TD and stole the victory.

Here's the scenario for this week, folks:
IF the Panthers beat Atlanta and Tampa Bay beats New Orleans, the Panthers get a wild card spot.
IF the Panthers beat Atlanta and Tampa Bay loses to New Orleans, the Panthers win the NFC South.
IF the Panthers lose, they need help from Dallas and Bobby Ewing's death to have all been a dream to get in.

The season comes down to tomorrow aftenroon. Win and you're in. Lose, and hope.

Until next time.

Rrowrrr!