ESPN

I could be an addict.

But we simply can't afford the money associated with what would most certainly become a controlling habit that would suck the life out of my datebook for outside activity and instead replace it with Cheetos eating, blanket wearing, bloodshot eyed sports fanatacism.

It wasn't meant to be.

We are among those who have our needs met and most of our wants, but sometimes you just have to draw the line regarding what is appropriate expenditure and what is money that can be best spent elsewhere.

So, we don't have ESPN.

Alas, although we can get ESPN 360 on the computer thanks to our internet provider, the tiny little broadcasts are BEHIND the time of the television broadcast just enough to have some tenderly considerate person call and tell me what happened before I get to see it. Grrr.

Of course, in this day and age of telethons for various causes and little jars next to cash registers all over the land, perhaps there is a way to feed my sports mania without breaking OUR budget to do it . . . "SUPPORT ATHLETICS" the jar would say, carefully omitting what version of support was being offered. I might make enough for the monthly bill . . .

No, no, no! That would be fraud, wouldn't it? Or would it?

OOOPS!

Sorry, the very thought of instant score updates and 24 hour news on my teams' standings made me temporarily morally bankrupt.

Oh, well.

I guess I am back to what the father of a guy my sister used to date used to announce at the end of every football game at Hartselle High School. "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter."

He honestly had NO CLUE why everyone in the stands was falling all over themselves laughing. Until his son Rusty informed him. But that didn't stop him from saying it. Once he knew what people were thinking, the crude old country boy in him figured that if they didn't know that he knew what he was saying, they would just think he was a dumb hick.

But the slick veneer of professional broadcasting got wiped away tonight at the Georgia Dome and revealed the ESPN sports guys for what they really are.

Some inclement weather moved into the metro Fulton County area and caused a bit of disturbance at the Dome. Lights flickered, overhead light and camera scaffolding began to rock and the fabric of the dome rippled like window sheers in a strong breeze. A tornado passed perilously close to the game and the previously erudite announcers became Bubba and Earl at the trailer park telling the world about how a sound "like a freight train came right over our heads".

Oh my goodness!

The truth is that in a crisis we are all little country folk who can't articulate our thoughts in complete sentences and who, for all of our fancy eddicashun, cain't strang togetha a whole thought without soundin' like we do our wash over'n at the Washerteria or the Wash-n-Gossip.

After all, them high fallutin' dee-plomers don't mean nothin' when an F-3 is a'comin' right fer ya.

Now I know that everyone is more 'little bit country' than they are 'little bit rock-n-roll'.

We want to be a finery and slipcovers, but the reality is that we are more crocheted doilies and drinking from a mason jar. But that's okay.

I fully expect ESPN to show up and cover the "Southern Olympics" this summer in Georgia. Mac Davis needs the publicity and the world needs a good laugh. But what we really need is an alternative to the glossy version of sports as the corporate talking heads want to present it.

We need more "Golden Flake Potato Chip Football Show" and less Sportschannel. And who wouldn't enjoy seeing a broadcast of Hunting and Fishing by Donnie Mack (who really HAS a show locally). He even fell out of his own boat on one show. It was hilarious!

And can you imagine the redneck broadcast of the Olympic Games from "Chiner"?

The color commentary would be straight out of Steel Magnolias!

Y'all go on home and practice tossin' your toilet seat for the horseshoes event, y'hear? We might be filming in your town real soon. . .