A FRIDAY night football spanking often means the weekend ahead is about as much fun as sharing a jacuzzi with Kyle Sandilands in Speedos whilst listening to Guy Sebastian singing Kumbaya.
How then to ease the pain? For those of you with little Saints running around at your house, the answer is easy. Use them as cover. Ever since EveMarie Saint made her debut just over five years ago I’ve worked out that little guys provide the perfect alibi for you to reindulge in some of your favourite forgotten past times
* Ice Cream. If you are addicted to the stuff like me, your little saint is your drug buddy and enabler. They never say no, so you don’t have to.
* The hilarity of bodily functions. If it comes out of the human body it’s funny. You know it is, I know it is, yet it’s frowned upon in polite circles. Not in the company of your little Saint though. The fart joke is once again art.
* Cartoons. How could you previously justify watching an hour of mindless animated violence and slapstick hilarity on TV when there were colour swatches to work through to decide the interior design of your outdoor dunny? Now you simply plead that you couldn’t deny your little Saint the joy of watching Tom and Jerry go at each other like they were playing in last weekend’s showdown.
And so that is where we found ourselves last Saturday morning, trying to forget the horrors of the night before. There we were, on the couch, remote control in hand and eyeballing a classic episode of Road Runner.
Sadly though, this episode of the cartoon classic was a parable of what happened to the Saints the night before.
That feral failure, Wile E. Coyote, had concocted another hare-brained scheme to catch Road Runner. It consisted of purchasing your standard issue ACME rocket which he then strapped to his back. As his target rounded the corner he lit the fuse and was flying. He all but had his hands around Road Runner’s neck when the road took a hairpin bend. Off the cliff he flew. Road Runner was away.
The genius of these cartoons is how it captures Wile E. Coyote’s existential angst as he looks wide-eyed and helpless at you, suspended in mid air, terrified, before plummeting to his fate.
It was how the Saints played last Friday night. We had a rocket strapped to our back in that first quarter and let fly at the Dogs. Our hands were almost around their throats when the game took a sharp turn and we kept on going right out into thin air over the canyon.
The next three quarters reminded me of poor old Wile E. Coyote, bewildered and helpless before gravity claimed him. And the thump we felt at the final siren reflected just how far we had fallen to earth.
This week we meet the Foghorn Leghorn of the competition, Geelong. After the premiership success they’re full of swagger and self-satisfaction, clucking around the yard like they own the joint.
Someone needs to teach that rooster a lesson. Hey Ross, just don’t try it with an ACME game plan.
