Oh yeah, and one last thing: I hate the Patriots.

I need your help today. 

Okay, and probably tomorrow, too. 

Actually, yeah, I’m going to have to ask for your assistance until—let’s see—next September. 

Seriously, after that game Sunday night, I managed to nail down a nice little table for one at the Blue Funk Café, and I don’t see the check coming any time soon.

I know, it’s ridiculous. On the scale of bona fide trauma, watching your team lose the Super Bowl should fall somewhere between the sudden extinction of wine coolers and no wi-fi in the Snappy Lube waiting room. Sure, it hurts. And yes, it’s very, very disappointing.

But for the love of Pete, this relatively trivial American athletic contest has turned me into a capital “J" jackass. Ask my family.

That’s us in happier times. It was taken last Thanksgiving Day, just prior to watching our Hawks peck the nuggets out of the Forty-Niners.

But since Sunday, I’ve elevated grumpiness and mood swings to royal status. Starting immediately after the game, neither my spouse nor either of my wee nestlings has wanted any part of Tim, Duke of Doucheberry. 

And the thing is, I’m over fifty. I should be a little better at this by now. As with my fellow Northwest pentagenarians, Super Bowl XLIX wasn’t the first time my heart’s been gouged out like a plastic spoon to a frozen puck of Ben & Jerry’s. The image from 1994 of Dikembe Mutombo, lying prostrate against the green Seattle Coliseum paint, still makes my undercarriage itch. It took a lot of positive self-talk and the whole O. J. thing to really hoist me out of that malaise.

The result of Super Bowl XL in Detroit provided another piercing hangover, the game handed to the Steelers with costly turnovers and felonious officiating. Thankfully, if it weren’t for “Sexyback,” released later that year, I never would have summoned the strength to dance my way out of the dark. Thanks, JT.

Time will heal, Hawk fans. Slowly, methodically, we’ll all become a little more philosophical, a bit less emotional. The days will get longer. Maybe we’ll begin bathing again or perhaps even return to work for half a day. We’ll stop mourning one loss and begin celebrating an era of Pete Carroll football still in its infancy. 

But that time has not arrived, not even close.

Every morning, we wake to the realization that our wound is still weepy, the Band-Aid soaked through again. That moment we pry open our crusty eyes to reveal the murk of a new day, it’s second down from the Patriot one. Before we can even put toothpaste to brush, the movie’s looped three times, we’ve rattled off six F-bombs and shredded the Fourth Commandment like a roadhouse full of off-duty scout masters.

Listen to sports radio while I shave? No thank you, I’ll enjoy the BBC on NPR for now.

What’s that? Spring training and March Madness are just around the corner? What’s your point? Basketball and baseball just remind me of football.

As you’ve probably seen, prior to every game, the Hawks huddle in small groups, sway back and forth and get each other jacked up with various chants. Here’s my favorite one from the Legion of Boom:

“We’re all we’ve got…

“…we’re all we need.”

Okay, that, and a second down do-over back in Glendale.