Bloopers!—Jan. 13

To make a bold prediction about the upcoming champions is usually the duty of the gambler and their money. A foolhardy bet against all hope that their team will win the whole goddamn thing because they’re the goddamned best. Do what any respectable degenerate does to curry favor with the Gridiron Gods and put a suicidal amount of money where your mouth is—bet your kid’s tuition, toss your house keys in the pot, hell, that wedding ring is worth something. The payoff of your team winning the trophy, and you the bet, is pure euphoria. The loss of defeat—crushing, and potentially lethal. Any junkie knows the beat.

The gambler’s lunacy is understandable. Your humble editor bets a modest 10 on black once in a blue moon when I cross a roulette table and I walk away satisfied. Yet even I would bet everything before I would even consider getting a tattoo predicting my team’s upcoming championship victory. It is quite literally the mark of a degenerate sports addict. This scarlet logo follows them for life, and even those who can afford the removal can never erase the shame of defeat. With the Cowboys suffering a crushing loss on Sunday, 2015 is going to sting for another 11 long months for Dallas fan Derek Allgood.

I hang my head at the thought that he might just not have learned his lesson (for indeed we Americans aren’t known for learning our lessons), and he’ll just change 2015 to 2016 because it’s cheap and he’s hopeful. It could always be worse; I suppose we could be branding our newborns out of the womb with hot irons in trademarked. Or, even more awful than that grotesque thought, it could have been a Redskins tattoo. Just imagine that aging gracefully.
Avoid making your own blooper—place your bets now…and get your ink after the team wins.