(pic:Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
2-1.
Well, that was close.
Somewhere around the 85th minute I made the conscious decision to turn the game off. Yep, I closed the Explorer window and took the laptop into the bathroom so I could listen to iTunes as I bathed.
Seriously.
Understand, though, it wasn’t because I was sick with the team or the impending result. Something just needed to be done. Somebody needed to step up and deliver. And for whatever reason, it felt… right. In the back of my head, I knew this gambit was going to work. So, I fired up the hot water and dialed up Soccernet’s Gamecast, jumping behind the curtain before it finished loading.
I had dared Liverpool to find a late winner just to spite me. And I’ll be damned if Captain Fantastic didn’t do it. (with some help from a poor defending decision)
Let me tell you how much better a steamy shower on a bleak winter’s day (actual winter-ish weather in the Lowcountry… shocking!) feels when you step out and are greeted with a goal that didn’t exist five minutes ago.
Now, I’ve tried this a handful of other times and it isn’t the first time it’s ‘worked’. I do understand, however, that my participation in the game does not effect the actual outcome (as hard a superstition as that was to let go of, years ago). Yet, that’s the nature of fandom, isn’t it? It’s littered with highly irrational (i.e. stupid) thinking and silly behavior. Half the things done in the name of sport would be utterly unthinkable in any other area of life.
But enough about my bathroom habits…
being sven 