SKÖLIOSIS WEEK 4: THIS IS 4-0 — Vikings 31 Packers 29
If anyone knows what it’s like to be a loyal fan of the Purple, it’s the readers of SKÖLIOSIS — your weekly reminder that being a Vikings fan is bad for your health.
Well, Vikings fans, this is 4-0. This is the life we always dreamed of. A life of sublime PERFECTION. But it's also a reminder of why it’s so damn hard to be a Viking fan. Because we don’t know how to have nice things, making perfection uncomfortable territory for many of us. Let’s be honest, the Purple’s perfect 4-0 start has been super weird, somehow leaving us with more questions than answers:
What do we do with this?
Where do we put our hands?
Why are we so scared?
Most Vikings fans aren’t comfortable flying this close to the sun, each foot of elevation we ascend only making our fear grow for the thought of how far we might fall. It’s all we can think about. We don’t know how to enjoy the view from up here because we are more focused on how and when we are going to fall back down. Is it going to be a painful collapse or a head over heels tumble down 17 flights of stairs? If being a Viking fan has taught us anything, it’s that what goes UP must come DOWN. Damn you Sir Isaac Newton! He’s probably a Chiefs fan anyway.
For Vikings fans, our newfound perfection is the white tuxedo that we are afraid to wear because we might get it dirty. It’s the davenport sofa (who says davenport anymore? Minnesotans do that's who) that our grandparents had covered in plastic so it wouldn’t get ruined by our soiled hands, even though it made it way less comfortable to sit on.
Un-Packing Our Emotional Baggage
Football fandom is a lot like finding love. Each season the start of a new relationship with someone and a chance to wonder if we’ve finally found our true love. Is this the one that will finally put a ring (Super Bowl preferably) on our finger? Or will this just end in another devastating heartbreak? After years and years of let downs, we have all built a hardened shell of scar tissue around us. A preparation for failure. We keep our seat belts on, and airbags activated, bracing for impact.
Maybe it's appropriate that we headed to Green Bay for week 4 with our perfect season intact, to play the hated Packers. Lambeau is the ideal place to unpack all this emotional baggage we’ve been carrying around. So far this season we have grabbed an Uber to a much nicer neighborhood filled with winners, and schools filled with cool kids that we don’t feel comfortable around yet. So, we prepare ourselves to be bullied and picked on for not truly belonging. Or worse, for being exposed as frauds. We feel like we are wearing the emperor's new clothes, and this only ends with everyone laughing at us. “It was cold! We were jumping in the lake after every Vikings score!”
Love Isn’t Perfect
Maybe we can, God forbid, learn something from the hated Packers across the border. In Week 1 of the season, Green Bay watched their starting Quarterback Jordan Love go down with an MCL injury that knocked him out for the next 3 weeks. Coming into week 4, Matt LaFleur and company had a decision to make. Do they keep Love on the bench for another week, protecting him from getting potentially hurt against Brian Flores aggressive blitzing defense, or roll the dice and start him. The Packers chose Love, and it nearly paid off as he shook off the rust and nearly led an epic second half comeback. Point being, maybe it's better to have Love and lost, than never to have loved at all.
The universe seemed to be echoing this message to us Vikings fans with the loss of both Kris Kristofferson and Pete Rose this week. Kristofferson may have written the perfect Viking anthem, “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” just check the lyrics, it sounds like a lot of Sundays watching the Purple:
On a Sunday mornin' sidewalk
I'm wishin', Lord, that I was stoned
'Cause there's somethin' in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone
And there's nothin' short a' dyin'
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleepin' city sidewalk
And Sunday mornin' comin' down
We can also learn from Pete Rose, a baseball icon whose last name is the universal symbol of LOVE. Rose’s legacy is defined by his imperfection: gambling on sports.
So, let’s all embrace our outlaw spirit, and like Kris find our cleanest dirty shirt, and grab a beer for breakfast as we prepare for the 8:30am London start this weekend. And let’s channel the spirit animal of Charlie Hustle, and go “all-in” on these Vikes.
Sure, the odds are that this will end in heartbreak. There hasn’t been a perfect season since 1972, and only one team is left standing at the end of the year. But while it may not end in perfection, it may still be wonderful. And for now to quote from the gospel of Pink, “we are F***ing perfect.” So, let’s just raise a glass and enjoy it, and stop worrying about when it’s going to end.
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