Skeletons, Torment In Heaven

 

Paranoia

Part 10 of 30

It’s always -- every stinking day -- with the death paranoia! I truly think my mind senses it could be any minute now. But it can’t be now because I’m doing this now. And I don’t just want to drop dead minutes from now, having my neck snapped as in a lynching. That’s an interesting thing, though, the way they dangle the bad news in front of you: “I sentence you to death by hanging from the neck until you are dead,” something like that. You’re like, Thank you for clarifying that, the exact sentence, the technique, and the result...

It would be worse, but certainly just as authoritative, if hideous skeletons who’ve “been there, done that,” came back with their bones and a tormented grin -- insistent as only an enlivened skeleton can be -- cackling the same words and taking glee in your torment. From their point of view, the more the merrier. “As you are morose, so I have been. And as you have been gleeful and morbid at the passing of others, so we shall be for unending centuries to come!”

Half the fun for them is getting there. Not just putting you in your place but keeping you on full display with the most morbid context they can muster: “What you’ve done was terrible, and the penalty will match your deeds, tormenting your mind every moment between now and then. What you have done is so heinous you will never lose the freshness of your punishment!”

Heh, this kind of reminds me of my dreams as a kid, but back then it was more of a heavenly situation I beheld. The great throne-room and a hallway like in The Wizard of Oz, and the bitter realization that there could be no escape. Heaven is known for many things, but one thing it’s known for above all things, and according to every source, if you look hard enough and are diligent in your interpretation: There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no broom closet in heaven for a sanctuary. Meaning, whoever the heavenly janitors are, they don’t keep their equipment and rags in a typical broom closet. They’re either in the open in the hallway or they're materialized as necessary when a blot on Heaven’s purity demands cleansing.

Look at our hero. There’s two things hovering. A bare light bulb, known of course for the torment it causes when swinging to and fro and stirring up eerie shadows. A skeleton gets its bony fingers close enough, and the thing’s swinging, downright terrifying. And there’s a horn or megaphone, a primitive speaker, perhaps, announcing the verdict, the disappointment, and finally the sentence of your hanging. O! I hope that doesn't loom out there for me! But if it does, my last act in this mortal existence will be peeing my pants and leaving the mess for others.

Punished, Going Down

 

Part 14 of 30

My Fragile Self-Esteem

That's me in mid-air slipping on a banana peel and falling. In a situation like that of dangerous circumstances and terrible consequences, bananas and gravity are your worst enemies. Of course it's also proverbial, meant to illustrate aspects of the experiences of people with fragile self-esteem.

But the connection with bananas/falling and having fragile self-esteem is only a thing of art. Because there’s no one-to-one discernible physical relation between the two. A person with great self-esteem -- never down on him- or herself in the slightest -- can also accidentally slip on banana peels. But their feelings on fragile self-esteem would not come to mind unless it’d be like this, “As a person with great self-esteem, I see no connection between any of that and slipping on a banana peel. It could happen to anyone, a person like me at the top of my game psychologically speaking or even an unfortunate dragged-down schlub with fragile self-esteem. It could in fact happen to me more frequently because, unlike the schlub, I'm not always looking down.”

Those are good thoughts, but when I go down, my first thought is always, “Yes, one more thing to add to all my other gripes. This had to happen to me, a damned persistent curse always working itself out, adding to my misery because misery is always a constant with someone with fragile self-esteem. Within a second or two my body is going to meet the floor, and there’s no way I’m going to escape it without feeling pain. Pain is a certainty. I may break something, although I hope I don’t. Let me get this punishment over with and perhaps I'll learn a lesson from it.” CRASH.

Another great point to make is it’s always something, again true for those not being punished as well as those of us who are. For someone like me, though, it means a lot more than for those who are completely innocent. The innocent slip and fall and may be embarrassed -- how I’d love to settle for mere embarrassment! -- but the rest of us feel and even know there’s something out to get us. Whatever our crime was it doesn’t matter. A punishment like this doesn’t really help. Or perhaps it does, in the sense that it’s one thing after another. Were I not being punished, I’d surely think of myself as more innocent than I am. But this judicious punishment -- one more punishment in a non-ending string of punishments -- keeps me dragging along at a particular pace and lets me know the trouble has not passed.

It’s interesting how these punishments are lined up, not in an obvious way but only discernible when the trap is sprung and experienced as if on a strict schedule. Going along with that, it’s also interesting that I don’t get, say, 10 punishments at once. It might be tripping over a board, my dog running into traffic, or a sack of dog poop catching fire on my lawn. One at a time. It’s never all three at once, an interesting aspect of punishments.

Well, here’s my response: I could much more easily shake my sense of doom and overcome my sense of fragile self-esteem if I saw a clearer, more blessed path in front of me than this drip drip drip of the negative. What a nightmare! And I genuinely like bananas, don't get me wrong.

Anyway, I thought all of that in mid-air. And my thoughts even went on for several more pages, mercifully excluded here, before I hit the floor. Which really hurt and was embarrassing. Several people were nearby. Also some snickering kids.

Strict Self-Abuse Timeout

 

Part 27 of 30

Self-Abuse September

I just recognized a problem, a flaw in our series. I didn’t give the normally expected warnings about self-abuse, but just opened the floodgates and left everyone to their own devices. And a few of you have written in, thanking me for “liberating” them, “giving me the green light,” “releasing the pent-up hounds of my loins,” and so forth. But I also heard from Semenon, the god of male self-reproductive stuff, that in a few cases I have unwittingly been a bad influence. And for that I’m sorry.

Yet, even with the vast number of male readers I have, and virtually all of them frequently opening the spigots wide and free, so far we’ve only had one who’s been penalized and exiled for a time to Gusher Island. For the offense of self-abusing 50 times in one week. Which I should have thought of. If that were evenly spread over the week, it’d be -- find my calculator here -- yes, quite a few times a day, at least 50 times in a week. Well, that’s only a little over 7 times a day, that’s not so bad. Although if I would’ve remembered the rule I would’ve put up the warning, limit it strictly to 7.

And you never know, the guy might’ve done 100 and it just took time for the powers that be to catch up with him. But now I’ve warned you I’m sure you’ll be fine. But if you are taken, look at the conditions on the island. Barren rocks, no chair, an enforcement devil, a huge skull (maybe King Dong whom mythology tells us inseminated the primal world then died), a porn magazine, and a healthy population of vultures or buzzards just waiting for you to pull it out. What do they do if you do? Well, they've got sharp beaks, their mouths are open, which might be clue.

It’s a terrible thing he had to go there. He committed spermicide and it’s partly my fault. But I vow that when he gets back, I will use some of the money I made this month from a particular planning for parenthood organization for helping lighten the load for them and a lot of guys, to go see him. Not only am I interested in Gusher Island -- I’d like to know if it’s worth the risk -- but I’d like to publicize his personal story and see if we could perhaps get him a partnership with sperm banks and maybe supplement his income by the notoriety. No, we don’t want every other child fathered by him, but 20% isn’t unreasonable. Each with strong wrists, we’d be winning the Olympic gold in lots of acrobatic categories.

But now he’s confined. Sidelined. Pulled over. Wearing one of those plastic Willy-B-Gones (cage) with a padlock -- kinky fun, guys. Adult diapers for incidental dripping. Bruises on his bottom from the rocks. Other discomforts. The enforcement devil expects certain favors and has terrible breath. Be warned.

Time to Face Your November

I love visions, usually. You're sitting there in meditation and maybe you fall asleep, I really don't know. I only know it all seems so real. There's planets and stars in strange formations passing overhead. You see wild symbolic figures, circles and triangles and various objects brightly colored in continual morphing. And the great figures of spiritual history, Moses, Buddha, and my Mom. I'm like, "You bastards get out of the way, that's my Mom!"

Today was one of those days. I felt like I was completely awake, because, look above, I have a pretty good picture of it. The revelations -- alas, mostly criticism -- are also clear in my mind. A kind gentlemen, very inscrutable, appeared in my room and told me to follow him. A yellow door suddenly appeared. I looked, there was nothing on it, no "For Madmen Only" sign, so I went.

Damn, if this wasn't a judgment seat type of thing going on! Just what I need, right? You think you're doing OK, things are going along good. But even then, and maybe especially then, everything is karma. Which I tend to forget till it's too late. Remember, I had the great idea to post something on my stinking blog everyday in November. So I did, posting-posting-posting, then I get up on November 30, today, and they come along to tell me ... all I did was make myself more karma. In terms of spiritual truth, you see, every goal like this is actually an insidious thing -- really bad for sensitive types -- where you realize in a flash the things you do are mere maya, delusion.

I've been through this crap before. There's not much you can do about it. Take your medicine and try better next time. But this time I decided to advocate for myself, stand up for myself. The highest part of myself, however, split off from myself, and stood across from me, closer to the judgment seat. According to it, it tried to warn me -- quote a million times unquote. "Did it try to warn you a million times? Yes or no." I stammered, "Well, yes, probably, I don't know if it was literally a million times..." "Silence! Whippersnapper..."

The problem was, according to the highest powers, for the most part I wasted my essence, which, damn, how do you argue with that? It's really true. "But!" I interrupted, trying to save a tiny bit of face, "Didn't I do a good job?" They averred, that, yes, occasionally I did all right, but sometimes it was a terrible bomb.

I asked which posts they thought were completely "suckalicious," meaning bad. They listed off, Chasing the Thrill Divine; The League of Women Non-Voters; Little Old Fantastic Me Strikes Again; and gave a few black marks for My Better Angels, which toyed with the idea of getting rid of my better angels and seeing how well I could "do it myself." I thought back and remembered those relatively horrible posts. The Thrill Divine was an idea that never blossomed, Non-Voters was inconsistent and false, and I don't even remember Fantastic Me. The beings at the judgment seat led me into an antechamber with nothing but a hickory tree in the middle. They cut off a strong switch and beat me till I almost passed out.

Back out, they told me their favorite posts. Including, Sloshing Tankards of Grog, Phones Ruint; Get Your T-Day Turkey by Drone; A Willing Man for Dillingham; That's Sexy...We're Not Moving; and, of course, Cosmos: Elvis Presley. (They love Elvis there!) I tried to make a case for my Mental Parasitism series (7 parts!), but this was judged technically adequate but overall a waste of time. Too much Institute politics, not enough actual mental parasite activity!

For the good posts I was led back into the antechamber, and this time there were pleasurable things, which were so personal I feel I should forbear describing them, except to say it was like a dozen honeymoons in Sweden, if you catch my meaning. I almost turned it down, because it's all I can do to even attempt a kiss on the first date. The thought of going all the way, and so many times, was like way too much!

They told me, then, that had they started first with the good, I would've been spared the whipping. "So why didn't you start first with the good?" ... "Didn't think of it till it was too late. Bruno started whipping you and he hates being interrupted."

DBKundalini Ass-kicking Service

Today's a big day for me! It's the one year anniversary of my business, DBKundalini Ass-kicking Service. I have to tell you, I was a little nervous when I started out. I had a number of friends who foresaw nothing but doom and gloom. They thought they were being cute when they said I'd be the one getting his ass kicked. Well, they were wrong. Business is good, I'm keeping busy.

It's frankly amazing the things that have happened in one little year. I have a few guys in town who simply enjoy having their ass kicked, hard. I do the best I can, although, to confess, I have a little arthritis in my kicking foot (I'm rightfooted). But I'm saved because mine's the only ass-kicking place in town. I do all I can to send them out with a smile on their face and a sore bottom in their pants.

I don't mind the arthritis so much when I'm making money, as you can well imagine. But I made a major mistake in this regard trying to gin up business. You know those discount cards civic groups sell? They list a business, then there's a freebie or discount. The pizza place gives a free order of break sticks with purchase of a pizza, the bowling alley gives a free half hour of bowling with the purchase of 5 pitchers of beer, and of course a hair salon offers a eye wax for a measly $5. Notice the common denominator there? They're buying something, unlike mine. In my ignorance I offered three free ass-kickings period. It's tough, since the average person with an ass is content with three kickings.

Still, life is good. To make up for that, I get lots of recommendations from doctors and lawyers. It turns out doctors are more frustrated with their patients than they let on. A guy drinks more than he should, for example, you'd think that'd be good for the doctor; he's going to need more care. But doctors look toward a more distant horizon, keeping the patient on the hook as long as he can. Early mortality (as in drunk driving) means lost money, especially when you consider the true bonanza they're look forward to, an average of 14 surgeries for every guy over 80. So they find "something wrong" with their ass and send them to me for $20 to $25 worth of kickings. I like that.

Lawyers are about as good, as they're usually acting on behalf of an aggrieved spouse. The guy's been cheating, the wife wants a divorce but wants the husband's weekly paycheck. She agrees to keep him, but only if he knows there's an endless stream of severe ass-kickings in his future if he misbehaves. The husband knows he has to submit, because it's cheaper occasionally denying her expenses while married than divorced. That leaves more money for his mistress. I don't care who wins or loses. I just take the money, kick his ass, and let it go.

One of the big surprises in the last year, something I didn't expect in my wildest dreams, has been a contract with the university for their losing sports teams. Basketball is entirely successful, but football is a total bust. Which is bad for the town but great for me! Because written into their scholarship is a nasty little agreement that at "the coach's discretion" they agree to "counseling, verbal or physical, as he shall choose, excluding the death penalty, of course, but including ass-kicking." This is amazing stuff. I have these huge guys who could kick my ass east, west, north, and south, if provoked, and there they are, lined up, getting their ass kicked by a wimp like me. Big bucks, too, university standards ... they pay five times the normal therapeutic rate! I just keep my fingers crossed, that they win enough to make the kickings seem beneficial but still lose enough to keep them necessary.

I've had to turn down a few clients. One thing I will not do is kick the asses of kids. Unless I'm personally and severely provoked, and even then I haven't been able to catch the little shits. Again, my arthritis, and, at the end of an average day my leg's dead tired. Which they know. I came home one day and these kids had picked every pussy willow off one of my pussy willow trees, and had them stacked up on my fish-cleaning table. I went limping toward them, moving my foot in a slow swing, and they dashed out of the yard quicker than snot. Still, like I said, I've turned down clients. Home school parents are often frustrated, and they're always calling me. "Junior's falling behind in his scores." I'm all like, "Then get him a different girlfriend ... I'm not kicking kids' asses!"

One whole year. And now, if my leg holds out, I'm going for two!

Mt. Olympus and the Pits of El Cid

"If anything was ever said wrong in this lifetime, that was surely it. And now, with my boldness, with my mistake, I have been hurled from the heights of Mount Olympus, all the way to the gloomy depths of El Cid." -- From my morning meditation, thinking of a recent (massive) failure in speech.

Here's a teaching I've kept in reserve, hoping that one day my readers would show them worthy of receiving it. My hopes have long been disappointed, as I suspected would happen, but I have a terrific sense that the time has come anyway. It currently applies to me.

I want to teach a little bit about the difference between Mount Olympus (good) and El Cid (bad), as these opposite concepts/locales relate to the things we say, our speech. Olympus being good, of course that's what we strive for. El Cid being evil, that's what we so often settle for, a big mistake.

But, you say, historically El Cid is supposed to be a beautiful place, a place of goodness. Not the way I see it, Cid being related to sin or, more immediately, Tom Sawyer's brother Syd, a true snake in Eden.

Was it something I cid? Said or did? Certainly. I've cid plenty, and you can't take back what you cid. The tongue is a world of fire, of evil. Rooting itself as it does in the rottenest part of your soul. What makes a soul -- the highest expression of the person -- crash and burn faster and meaner than that? As long as I'm secure in one place, not stirring, uttering not a peep, I'm OK. But where there's movement there's trouble. And with movement comes expression, verbal blather, verbal garbage, the whole dump truck of written or spoken vileness.

The only antidote -- or solution -- is to remain in one place, be physically still, and keep your fool mouth shut. Am I right? That's what they say in meditation: You want to sit still and focus on one thing, that hopefully becomes no thing, so that you're again in the non-dual realm of Mount Olympus, i.e., the highest place, heaven.

For many of us this is hard to maintain. It's certainly been tough for me. Whereas I might sit there silently -- I'm thinking of myself in a group now -- at the last minute I open my mouth and all is lost. The Olympus investment I made is suddenly sunk by the junk bonds of El Cid. It's happened so many times it's not funny.

And I know where it's rooted, those stinking college courses where part of your grade is dependent on participation. You sit there silently all semester, then realize you're going to flunk if you don't speak up by the last session. By now -- and this is straight out of our group dynamics experience -- the groove of the group is deeply chiseled, the pecking order of talkers being long established. The fact that you're suddenly blurting something out, and clearly to meet the participation requirement even if it's by the skin of your teeth, makes you a shame in their eyes. They are in Olympus, but you are hopelessly mired in El Cid. Same old story.

I hasten to clarify, however, that Mount Olympus, despite what I just said, is a thoroughly positive thing, the very opposite of El Cid. On Olympus the gods are assembled in one place, the correlate of being alone with your thoughts. In the wastleland known as El Cid, knowing that you've broken the silence, and the filth hole on your face has spewed forth its muck and mire, that which is most despicable in the depths, you're in the depths.

You can tell -- I hope you grasp this -- that to be an extrovert is to constantly fail, to sink as it were in the quicksand of El Cid. No one wants to be around you. Everyone wishes you'd shut up. But to be an introvert -- like cleanliness -- is next to godliness. Clearly the reason is that with silence you're on Olympus (or closer), although, as is well known, you can still spoil it and once again fall to El Cid.

With my mind, then, I honor Mount Olympus, but with my mouth El Cid. How may I be delivered from such a fate? Thanks to the gods of Mount Olympus, my natural homeland is not El Cid! My daily prayer -- join me in this prayer now -- is for Olympus to keep me far from El Cid, in my spirit and daily life. May it be true for all of us! Although I know it won't be.

Terrible Trouble! The Barber and Pizza Place

I saw the basics of this incident with my own two eyes. But I didn't really know it was in process till I'd noticed the guy walk by three times. I was sitting on a bench uptown. By the third time the guy walked by me I looked up from my phone and started paying attention. Then I was able to piece together the previous three trips in the context of the incident.*

The guy is a guy about town, someone that if you live here you see all the time. He doesn't seem to have a ton of friends -- never a companion -- but everyone, especially businessmen, know him. He's uptown a lot, and must check in a lot with merchants. This time he was going back and forth between the pizza place and the barber shop.

He started out at the barber shop and went to get a pizza for the barber, which he delivered. But there was some problem, so he went back to the pizza place with a dollar, then back to the barber. Soon he returned to the pizza place to get a handful of napkins, then to the barber. Then he returned to the pizza place for a little container of cheese, then back. Then he returned to the pizza place for some red peppers, then back.

By now, with yet another trip, the pizza place thought maybe there was a problem. He explained that the barber was certain the pizza was supposed to have been $7, but it turned out to be $8. The extra trips back were the barber's way of recouping his dollar.

So the pizza man sent him back to the barber with a message, that the pizza was indeed $8, not $7, because extra cheese is a dollar more. The barber sent him back with a message that he hadn't asked for extra cheese, the usual amount of cheese being all he wanted. The pizza man sent back a message that naturally he wouldn't have known that. He put one little knife in the barber's back: People rarely go to the barber, and then it's always the same ones. If the barber remembers what his customers want, that's no surprise. But so many people go the pizza place, many different ones, one order's the same as any other.

Obviously this kind of nasty comment didn't sit well with the barber. Especially since their commerce is only one way, the barber ordering pizzas but the pizza guy never getting a haircut. (I'm sure I would've have a hard time holding my tongue, too.) He sent the guy back to the pizza place with a message: "Your pizza sucks anyway, whether it's $7 or $8." The pizza guy sent him back with a message in return: "Why do you think I never come in for a haircut? The looks of your haircuts aren't the greatest." Their go-between man was Exhibit A, whose head and whole manner look totally bad; he's just a guy with bad hair.

It escalated from there. The barber complained that the pizzas were often dry like cardboard, and in addition, the occasional sandwiches he'd ordered were tasteless and skimpy on meat and hefty on lettuce. The pizza guy sent a message back that haircuts in general are very boring, and that this particular barber's haircuts were the most boring. Plus, and here he was unfair, the barber's toilet paper budget must be through the roof, just to patch up nicks from shoddy shaving practices.

By now the guy had gone back and forth -- I lost track -- maybe 18-20 times. As an emissary delivering messages, he did a fine job. But in my opinion it would've be more helpful to smooth out some of the rough edges of the messages they entrusted to him.

Finally, the pizza guy thought, "The barber actually is a pretty good customer. And we've been here all these years, on friendly terms." The barber, to his credit, also thought it over, "If I don't fix this, I won't be able to order pizzas again, which means I'll either starve or have to order from someone farther away."

The barber sent the guy back to the pizza guy with a friendly word, then to smile and ask about the extra cheese thing. But before asking about the cheese, the guy admitted ordering extra cheese, not to cause trouble, but that's the way he personally orders pizza, so it had slipped his mind, causing the extra dollar charge for the barber.

Of course there's a happy ending, as seen in the picture. The pizza guy kicked the guy out once and for all, then made up with the barber, returning his dollar, who immediately went to the register and gave the pizza guy 50 cents. They both agreed that they had been good neighbors far too long to let this guy screw them up now.

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* An interesting moment for me, when I go from basic ignorance to omniscience

The Key to My Mouth

I'm able to go profound lengths of time profoundly silent. Witness what I've done here at my blog. I've resisted the temptation all month, until now, when I feel I have something to brag about, to write. I have literally let the pearls of wisdom that I normally transfer from my mouth to my hands lie dormant. They've been locked up.

Now, though, only when I have something to brag about, my profound silence, do I break my silence and proclaim it. Quite the deal.

I guess I've always been that way. Starting way back, when I first heard of the concept of zipping your lip, then, more impressive to me, of locking it all together. I was like the fainting goat of speech, everything I was meant to be by nature, but with the added discipline of just keeping to myself.

Someone would interrupt me, let's say, then ply me for my opinion. But by then, whether stealthily or in the open light of everyone's field of vision, I would have taken an invisible key from my pocket and locked my mouth. Then, no matter how they begged and wheedled about it, I would sit silent, stone-face, breathing only through my nose.

That's a dynamite feeling, too. If you've never tried it, try it. Let a roomful of people sit there and see you with the discipline it takes to not unlock your mouth. I'm getting a head rush just thinking back over my life, and hoping, as strange as it sounds, that someone offends me very soon so I can do it again!

So often, though, I've been very civilized. I might be sitting there in a group, trying to offer my two cents' worth, and all the others are filibustering. Then I try to pipe up with something and some blowhard across the room will talk over me. So often I've just let it go.

But it all depends on how I'm feeling, and you definitely feel more civilized as an adult than a kid. But say I'm feeling cantankerous, like a kid, I'll reach for the key and very publicly lock my mouth, and that's it! Now, all of a sudden, everyone wants to hear me! Funny how that works! So, again, depending on how I feel, I might unlock it quickly, or I might just sit there and not.

It'd be cool ... How about this? I'm offended right away, then I lock my mouth and throw away the key. It's over there somewhere, invisible. They're begging me, "Please tell us what it was!" and I just point to my locked lips. Then I sit there the entire hour or two, whatever it is, letting the lock do its thing! It'd really flummox them! Later, they see me on the street and I'm talking, because I always carry a spare key.

Anyway, you have two lessons today. Locking your mouth is something to do. And, don't interrupt me, or get on my nerves in any other way, or I'll lock my mouth and you'll never know what you missed.

March Madness -- Punish The Coaches

I'm a victim of March Madness this year! Watching basketball. Not all of it, but a bunch. I should say, the phrase March Madness is a trademark of the NCAA, as is March Mayhem, Final Four, and maybe the Big Dance, and who knows what all else.

And after I get this blog done, maybe Punish The Coach will be a trademark, too, because I believe it would be super popular.

The coach, as everyone knows, is the man in charge. He's the one who's taken a bunch of rough-cut know-nothing guys and introduced them to basketball. He's shown them the ball and explained to them what it is. They've learned the basics from his hands and lips, that it rolls, bounces, flies, and goes through circular things called hoops, then through net-like things called nets. After the basics, it's on to the advanced stuff, like the court, the various lines on the floor, and the rules of the game.

Having learned all that, it's time to form a team and chalk up some victories. The way I understand it, by the time they're allowed into the NCAA Tournament, they have proven themselves on the court in something called the regular season. It appears the criteria for admission is to win more games than they lose, then they apply another factor, the quality of their opposition. If they've got all their dunks in a row, they're in.

Now it's time to win or lose in the tournament. And lose they do! In fact, any rational survey of the situation has to conclude that they're nearly all losers. Only one team makes it through the tournament unscathed. The others have signed up more or less for a completely predictable loss. They're putting themselves through all the agony (which is up to 99% assured) for the rarest of chances that they'll win.

My proposal is, if they lose, as most of them must, we should let the coach experience some of the anguish. As the representative of the team, the head, he must submit to the worst rigors.

OK, we'll leave the last two teams, those in the championship game, aside for a moment. (The last losing coach will face his rigors just prior to the winning team getting their trophy). So this means we have 66 teams who have already lost. At halftime of the final game, we want to bring the 66 coaches out, and have them submit to punishment. Obviously they've done something very wrong that their teams haven't won, although, yes, it's assured that all but one will win.

We line them up by first out, with statistics of the game governing final placement. Then it's on to the festivities, dunk tanks, pie throwing, children pelting them with Nerf balls, and rotten tomatoes. It's a gentler form of what we see in mythology, in tribal societies who are concerned about fertility and crops, the death of the king. I can see that coaches would love to do it, because it might just work, swaying the gods to give them a more fruitful season next year.

All the nastiness out of the way, we have the same line-up, and we pass out the laurel wreathes. I'm very merciful, so I'm saying we add one to the Sweet 16 for purposes of this ritual, 16+1. The top 17 coaches get a bigger laurel wreath for their head, along with a kiss from the prettiest cheerleaders. Of the next two divisions (16 each), one gets slightly smaller laurel wreaths and a kiss from the more average cheerleaders, and the other gets even smaller laurel wreaths and a kiss from the below average cheerleaders.

The next-to-last division is only 15, to account for the 1 we added to the Sweet 16. They get a laurel sprig and a kiss from whoever's left. The last four teams of the 68 in last place, the coaches of the teams, get to sniff a laurel sprig, and look at whoever's left. Plus a kick in the ass.