Oh my goodness! The sports world has been canceled! What to talk about?!
The fear is real.
This isn’t like the post-spring season college sports “dead” period that starts in June and runs through August — when recruiting is happening, administrative decisions are being made, and of course, football is on the horizon. Nope, everything has ground to a halt. There is very little sports news to talk about, though the NFL players did approve the 17-game season yesterday.
There is a hole in the heart of every rabid sports fan.
For me, at the office, as this new week progresses, I’m going to find myself in the awkward situation of having to stretch my brain to think of things to talk about with my fellow, sports-crazy co-workers. Sports is all we talk about, so what now?
Late last week we were able to talk about the shock of having no sports to watch, but we can only squeeze the juice out of that lemon for so long. At some point, we’ll have to move past sports and talk about real-life stuff such as the weather, family and how our weekends went…
Nooooooooooo!!!
This could then lead to deeper things like us sharing our feelings, emotions and problems. You know, the struggles of life. This subsequent fellowship could create a deep-rooted emotional connection, a therapeutic bonding, a shoulder to cry on peer-group in which to lead, guide, and support each other into living much more healthy and happy lives. A place where I, Darren Perkins, would be on the fast-track to becoming the very best Darren Perkins that I can be!
Well to heck with that … I’m just going to avoid them until sports come back.
I flipped some Miranda tickets, and now they might have to somersault back.
Completely Random Coronavirus Ramblings and Rumblings
1) What to Watch on TV: With no sports on the boob-tube (for you younglings that’s what we used to call the TV, it’s a nickname, so don’t get any weird ideas). Time to pick about 20 shows on Amazon Prime and Netflix. I stumbled across a rerun of the 2004 Oregon at Cal game. Is it weird that I still yell and complain at the TV over a game that’s 16 years old? Ducks lost of course, but Haloti Ngata was a beast.
2) Ronnie Milsap: I’m not a country music fan; rock has always been my thing, but there is a place in my heart for some of the older stuff. When I was a little kid in the early ’80s, my mom always had the radio on Eugene’s very own country station KUGN-FM. I learned to like some songs by the likes of Alabama, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, etc., and of the course the great Ronnie Milsap.
I have tickets to his show in Spokane on March 24. It’s postponed. And as he’s no spring chicken, so hopefully it will get rescheduled.
3) Miranda Lambert: Speaking of country music, just for fun, I bet myself I could flip a couple of pairs of tickets for her April 24 performance at the Spokane Arena. Unlike Ronnie, she’s hip and contemporary, and quite honestly that’s all I know about her.
Having bought hundreds of tickets over the years to various events, I’ve learned a thing or two about the value of a ticket. Sure enough, in no time, I made a tidy little profit of which I parlayed the earnings into purchasing Guns n’ Roses tickets for a show in August.
Well, it’s looking more and more like I’ll be giving those earning back as I wait for the Lambert show to be canceled. What a bummer, but I’ll survive — for as Axl Rose once sang, “Nothing lasts forever, even cold November Rain.”
The hounds are enjoying their immunity to this virus.
4) Canceled Visit: One of my best friends was coming up to Spokane in late March for the Pacific Northwest Qualifier. The “PQ” is a gigantic volleyball tournament in which his high-school daughter was participating. He has a couple of daughters who have participated over the years, so this with be their seventh year straight. Of course, it was canceled, but I try to focus on the positive. Luckily, this year was my turn to buy dinner. Sorry, friend.
5) Panic Free Express Lanes?: I hit the local Albertson’s after work on Friday. Big mistake. The place was jam-packed and the check-out lines went on forever. I wasn’t buying a single thing concerning the Coronavirus panic, just humbly wanting to purchase steak, Diet Pepsi (of which I was dangerously low) and a bag of Cadbury Dark Chocolate Mini-eggs. But most people — including the guy with a cart filled with canned corn and green beans — were in full-on freak-out mode. Lame.
6) Gonzaga: Of course, as Oregon fans, we’re all saddened by the lost opportunity for the men’s and women’s basketball teams. The women’s team had a strong shot to win it all, while the men’s team had a chance to make some real noise. I would like to think Payton Pritchard would have willed his team to an Elite Eight, and maybe more.
Of course, up here in Gonzaga country (my distant second-favorite team), the Bulldogs were a strong title-contender and even had their opening-round games at the Spokane Arena. Sadly, that opportunity was taken away from the school and its rabid fan base here in my adopted city.
7) Dogs Can’t Get It: My two little buddies, Chewy and Chester, are safe from infection. Now if they could only be infected with the ability to poop on the bark-mulch covered areas of my yard and not the lawn.
Ronnie Milsap: One of the greats.
8) Toilet Paper Craziness: All this insanity over toilet paper has reminded me of my own insane TP moment from long ago. For some, this might fall into the category of “TMI” (Too much information). But hey, I gotta’ be me. And in some insane way, I do it so that others may feel better about themselves.
Shortly after I graduated from the U of O in the late ’90s, I did some traveling throughout SE Asia. One day at a shopping center in Bangkok, I found myself in the men’s room. As I was wrapping things up, I was horrified to notice that my stall was out of toilet paper. Luckily, nobody else was in the restroom, so I quickly shuffled around — with pants, in the name of cleanliness, not fully pulled up — stall to stall, with no luck.
I was screwed.
So with no other choice, I did what any self-preserving survivalist would do, I reached for my wallet. Luckily it was filled with cash in lower denominations. The US dollar, the Korean Won, and the Thai Baht. I did some quick mental math and came to the conclusion the Thai Baht would be my most cost-effective choice of “toilet paper.”
After applying the conversion rate, that visit to the restroom cost me several dollars… and a whole heck of a lot of self-respect.
———
So just like that, I wrote a whole article essentially void of sports. Ya know, it felt pretty good. Sharing, laughing, bearing my soul in the name of humility. I suddenly feel like a better person for it.
Heck, maybe I should sit down and have a little coffee and conversation with those guys at work after all.
Darren Perkins
Spokane, WATop Photo from Pixabay.com
Natalie Liebhaber, the FishDuck.com Volunteer Editor for this article, works in the financial technology industry in Bozeman, Montana.
Darren Perkins is a sales professional and 1997 Oregon graduate. After finishing school, he escaped the rain and moved to sunny Southern California where he studied screenwriting for two years at UCLA. Darren grew up in Eugene and in 1980, at the tender age of five, he attended his first Oregon football game. His lasting memory from that experience was an enthusiastic Don Essig announcing to the crowd: “Reggie Ogburn, completes a pass to… Reggie Ogburn.” Captivated by such a thrilling play, Darren’s been hooked on Oregon football ever since. Currently living in Spokane, Darren enjoys flaunting his yellow and green superiority complex over friends and family in Cougar country.