A Dream Within A Dream

Week three of the NFL season is all but a memory now. Football has taken hold and the country has gone back to their regularly scheduled Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, Monday night, Thursday evening pattern of viewing. Those of us who rally around that sort of thing, anyway. Besides having a schedule that essentially wraps around the week with only scant moments between contests, there is the wall to wall coverage of what is happening on, off, and around the field on a wide variety of cable television outlets including their own flagship station which pumps out a steady stream of updates as if our national security depended on them.
Mine used to. My security, that is. Back in the days when I played fantasy football, I relied on those bits of news that might affect my team's lineup. Who has a tear or contusion that could keep them on the bench? Who didn't pass their concussion protocol? Who missed a team meeting? Who is in jail? It was that last little bit that really soured me in the last few years. The folks I played with used to joke about putting together an "All-Suspension Team," one which would track the accomplishments of players who had run afoul of the National Football League's arcane policies as well as those whose off the field antics had brought them infamy in ways far less prestigious than their stat sheets would account.
When the autumn leaves began to turn this year, and the smell of pigskin filled the air, I was without a league. Apparently the people with whom I used to share this deep and abiding vicarious thrill had a similar bout of disillusion. The momentum that keeps the NFL running did not need my participation. They are doing just fine, thank you very much. Games are being played and cases are being heard for those who may or may not be suspended without my daily, hourly, moment to moment, attention.
There was a moment when I felt a twinge: Do I miss this? I wondered aloud on Friday morning, and my drowsy wife rolled over and graciously offered to put a league together with me. It was a loving moment. I was moved. But I wasn't moved enough to ask her to put up a front for my benefit for sixteen weeks. It was a fantasy league that I did not expect. What man wouldn't want his wife to play Fantasy Football with him?
This one.
And that's fine.
We'll find something else to fill our time.