The Jets

It’s Sunday afternoon and several of us, Leong, Sunny, Anna, Lisa and her new BF Dave (well, he isn’t ‘new,’ he’s 26) and I are watching an NFL football game. The Eagles vs the Jets. There’s a platter of wings, fries, celery and dips on the low-white table for grazing and everyone’s multitasking while watching the game. Leong, Lisa and I on iPads, Anna, and Dave are on laptops and Sunny has a book. I’m rooting for the Jets, although they’re the underdogs and given little chance. Dave’s for the Eagles, he believes they’re SuperBowl bound and he may be right. After every good Jets play, like a first down, or defensive tackle or a score, I start snapping my finger - like the dancing Jet hoodlums in ‘West Side Story’ and sing: “When you're a Jet, you’re a Jet all your life all your kids will be Jets and even your wife.” When I did it the first time, Dave chuckled. Lisa patted his arm, saying, “You’ll get used to it.” I’ve only done it twenty or thirty times since then and everyone’s ignoring me. “I could be a songwriter, you know,” I said, “just give up this life of college drudgery and hang with T-Swift”. No one denied my obvious talent. A huge Eagles lineman bust through the Jets o-line, throwing QB Zach Wilson to the turf, “Jeez,” Anna said. “That guy’s not an Eagle,” I protested indignantly, “he’s a condor.” I was hoping for a flag, but none were thrown. “I want some steak”, I announced suddenly, to no one and everybody. Switching subjects as quickly as a brain synapse fires. “Do you know,” I reasoned extemporaneously, “that a diet of nothing but healthy prime-rib or ribeye steak can practically *eliminate* the chance of coming down with mad-lettuce-disease?” “Mad-lettuce-disease?” Sunny asked, looking up from her book with a smirk. “Middle America,” I began, Leong groaned, and Lisa rolled her eyes at Dave, who smiled. “That’s where all our vegetables come from,” I said, “the red states on the electoral maps,” I clarified even further. “Well, how can we explain simple, decent, hard-working people falling in love with a lying, craven, reality-TV huckster like Trump?” I asked rhetorically, looking around for an answer. When no answer was forthcoming, I supplied it: “Mad-lettuce-disease!” I proclaimed, “Those people are eating the ‘vegetables’ they grow!” Giving the word ‘vegetables’ the same scorn I might lavish on ‘cigarettes’. “If we all just stuck to a healthy, all-steak diet, ‘Mad-lettuce-disease’ would fade away and America would be saved.” I concluded, like a lawyer finishing a summation to a jury. I expected applause, or at least a few “Amens” but there were only a few grunts and maybe a chuckle. On the screen, the Jets defense broke through the Eagles o-line and quarterback Jalen Hurts, under pressure, threw an interception. I jumped to my feet yelling, “YES!” and begin snapping again: “When you're a Jet you’re a Jet all the way from your first sorry breath to your last dying day” I love football, and the Jets won!