Damn it.
Not again.
I mean, what are the odds? Another year, another me-damned perfect bracket.
I even swore (meaning it, too) that I wouldn’t automatically advance the teams that thanked me more often in their post-game interviews. I was like, God, why not give both sides a chance? How about, just this one time, you don’t let vanity get the better of you? Sure, you may literally be the End All, Be All, but maybe, just maybe, once every thousand years or so, maybe you don’t need to put your fingers on the scales for absolutely every-single-thing-that-is-happening-under-the-sun? Y’know?
Guess I just can’t help myself.
Look, I did my damndest to ignore their pathetic locker room entreaties, to not count who had more tattoos of the cross and my name and my favorite quotes (Full disclosure I am a total fanboy for John 3:16, FYSA) on their calves or pecs or backs, and yet lo and behold turns out I am an absolute pushover for these adorable little mortals with such blind and adoring faith when it comes to this not insignificant matter of my omnipotence.
Of course they’re not wrong. Why, I even nailed the combined total score of the final game.
Uh-gain.
I’d pat my own back if I weren’t a diffuse, immaterial entity inhabiting every particle in the universe and, as such, strange as it may seem, don’t actually have a back.
No wonder the archangels bailed on the office pool twelve years back. Cowards. They happily chase the (Final) Four Horsemen down a down a fiery pit into an abyss of suck, but when it comes to a little game of what I like to call SUCKERS — I mean, chance — they take their celestial marbles and wing it homeward. Maybe — maybe — if Gabriel hadn’t been such a sourpuss that year and scared off the rest of the crew after he lost his sword as part of the pot, we would all still be floating around in our cool, casual-yet-lofty and ephemeral way and enjoying a smug chortle or two about my utterly predictable and incredibly boring streak of sheer perfection.
You know what? To hell with the angels. Go play Satan’s low-rent games of luck. See how much fun it is to be humbled when you’re constantly sweating. See how bright your halos glow then. At least up in heaven the clouds are hypoallergenic, it’s pretty much always a balmy 72 degrees and they never, ever run out of Miller Lite.
But then I’m all like, Where’s the fun in running my own contest? Last year I filled out fifty-seven thousand brackets. Fifty-seven thousand! And damn it all to hell (which is actually just a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Phoenix, FYI) and back, wouldn’t you know that every single one was 100% right!
Yeah.
Because even with multiple dimensions and infinite permutations that factored in every variable I could imagine—strength of schedule, points-per-possession, three point shooting percentages, tradition, number of NBA players, size of mascot, name of mascot, grade point average of unlucky sophomore math major who is inside of said mascot—guess who managed to bat a thousand?
This guy.
Oh, me. I can’t even help myself. Maybe I’ll just find a place where people trick themselves into believing they can guess what I’m thinking, where they think they can touch my true essence and turn it into cold hard cash just by blowing on some fancy baubles and whispering my all-knowing, all-seeing, all-controlling name.
Maybe I’ll just go to Rome.
Just kidding, I’m already halfway to Vegas.