I used to like football.

I mean, I’ve never been a huge fan, and I don’t really follow any teams, but I do find it kind of interesting to watch. Even if you don’t understand the rules, it’s fun to watch guys slamming into each other at full speed. It’s a fascinating hybrid of soccer, wrestling, and professional boxing (minus the fists.)

Of course, that was all in the past. Why is that? It’s because I now work in a sports bar, and to make matters worse, I work SUNDAYS in a sports bar.

Football fans take their sport very seriously. Football fans congregated together tend to take it even more seriously. Football fans congregated in a bar, drinking alcohol and placing sidebets are probably the most serious sports fan of all.

I have now come to the conclusion that serious sports fans are incredibly obnoxious. For the first hour, it was kind of fun. Then it got loud. Then it got even louder. Eventually it gave me a headache, and I began to hate all things football. Imagine a room, filled with screaming, testosterone-laden men, all hooting and hollering at the top of their lungs, flinging themselves about in wild abandon.

It was like being in the primate section of the zoo during mating season. In fact, I believe that the mating call of most of the men in my area sounds something suspiciously like “RAAAAAIIIII-DEEEEEERS!”.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go subject myself to nine more hours of the same treatment, only this time it’s known as “Monday Night Football”, which is not to be confused with “Sunday Football.”

The good news is that there’s only, oh, say, about sixteen more weeks of this.