¿What if you can’t tell when you’re dead? You’re just sitting at a coffee shop chatting with a friend about whatever and you have no idea you’re being evaluated for Heavenly Admission. Then you both stand up, walk to the door, and your friend says, “Congratulations, you’re going to heaven.”
At that moment you realize you’re dead but it isn’t a shock. It just makes sense and all you feel is elated relief. Like, “Oh, thank ¡SOLUSTRON! Phew.” Then you skip into what is surely a perfect futbol pitch with a thrilling match waiting only for you to take place.
That’s what making the playoffs in the CSC is like.
¿PLAYOFFS?
The playoffs consist of only 2 games and that means only 4 teams make it. Prior to Game 8 your ¡FUTURISMOS! were in 4th overall place in the league; guaranteed to make the playoffs. After our Game 8 loss we fell to 10th and the playoffs were very much in doubt.
I say “in doubt” rather than “clearly out” because the overall league is divided into divisions. Each division has its own playoffs but the kicker is the number of divisions is unknown.
There are 68 teams in the league overall. It could be 2 divisions with 34 teams a piece, 3 divisions with 22 teams each, 4 with 17, or so on. We had no idea. So if there were 2 divisions, 8 teams make the playoffs; 4 divisions, 16 teams make it. For your ¡FUTURISMOS! to have any chance of making the playoffs there had to be at least 3 divisions.
Turns out Saint Peter really is into threes.
¡PLAYOFFS!
It takes the CSC up to 2 days to post results and announce matches. Game 8 was Sunday at 10 in the morning. Nothing was posted on Monday and I didn’t sleep. On Tuesday the whole work day came and went when finally, just after 6pm (so the workday hadn’t gone for everyone), they posted the results and matches.
I scrolled down to see what time our next match was and there beneath the game time was something I’d never seen before. It looked like this:
The bold, green all-caps PLAYOFFS jumped out at me. We made it. I leapt out of my chair and sprinted through the office to find fellow ¡FUTURISMOS! to freak out with. The only one I found was King Vidor who responded like this:
“Oh, that’s great,” he said with a level of enthusiasm that can only be described as Henry Kissinger-esque. “I wonder if my other team made it. [clicks something on his computer] My other team made it too. Wow. Cool.”
I couldn’t find anyone else so I just ran around the office for a half-hour intermittently whooping and screeching. Never once during that half-hour did the thought occur to me “maybe this means too much to you.”
Never once during that half-hour did a single negative thought enter my mind. My usual existential tormentors were all forced to twiddle their thumbs. The fact human beings are destroying the Earth faster than it can repaired; the fact that human beings as a species lead lives worthy of damnation by any reasonable measure; the fact I have no idea what I’m doing on this planet; and the fact that I’m beyond a doubt wasting my existence; none of that crossed my mind for one sublime half-hour.
There’s a Nike futbol campaign running now about “this is why we play.” It’s all done in first person and the story arc is you go from being a hero on a nobody club to a nobody on a big time club to a hero on a big time club. That isn’t why I play.
I’m a nobody on a rec-league club. Hero status or playing for a nobody club are forever beyond my reach. But for one half of one hour the Universe stopped and in its ineffable way gave me a nudge to say, “There you go, kid.”
So your ¡FUTURISMOS! Greatest Season continues with our first ever playoff match. [By the way, it’s Sunday at 10am at Augsburg College… and there are bleachers… just in case anyone feels like showing up… whatever.] It’s safe to say the next blog entry will be first thing in the morning Monday, June 16th no matter how long it takes the CSC to post the results.
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