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.

It's Morning in Seattle.

43-8. Wow, didn't see that coming.

They did it. We did it. 

We are the champions, my friends. The Seattle Seahawks destroyed Peyton and his Broncs as if they were the semi-pro Algona Aardvarks. You know the team, right? The wide receiver works in the paint department at Home Depot and the quarterback played for Algona High back in the day, but now he's thirty pounds heavier and his helmet hurts his hair plugs? Yeah, those guys.

As I've mentioned a few times before, if you're not from Seattle, it might be hard to relate to our historical futility. The last team to win a major title was the 1979 NBA Supersonics, back when a Walkman cost 200 bucks and a gallon of gas was 89 cents. Jimmy Carter was president and I thought seriously about fathering Olivia Newton John's children, sometimes up to three times a day.

Who would have known that three and a half decades would pass before the Jet City would again kiss the cup?

Folks in other towns have toasted their franchises on countless occasions during the Emerald City's three-and-a-half-decade drought. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore…hell, even Tampa Bay won a world championship while Seattle warmed herself in a stuffy slicker of Prozac and Pearl Jam. Boston twice vanquished the Bambino's curse, while the Patriots, Celtics and Bruins accumulated hardware like Fred Sanford. Marcia's nose never would've been broken if it had been Tom Brady, rather than Greg, throwing that pass.

Meanwhile, things grew worse in Seattle. Thanks to a Starbucks cracker and an Okie fracker, the Sonics jumped ship in 2008. A perfect storm engulfed the Northwest, a convergence zone of greed and dishonesty rendering our citizens disillusioned and bitter. Fortunately our baseball team, the Mariners, contended for the pennant on a yearly basis, often well into the second week of the season. 

Until last night, Seattle resided with its own bambino, but this baby was 35, still living downstairs and only coming up to pee and stock up on pork rinds and Mountain Dew. 

Prior to Super Bowl XLVIII, the Broncos and Seahawks had squared off 53 times, and never in the history of the rivalry had either team won a game by more than 24 points. Not once in 37 years had one team dominated the other with the prowess of an Appalachian canoe-welcoming committee.

Until last night. At the conclusion of the bloodbath, as Peyton Manning waded through a blizzard of blue and green, congratulating his opponents and consoling himself with the bland promise of Papa John's pie for life, I drank in the dignified gait of a vanquished warrior. How noble he looked, how proud he stood in the Bronco uniform, its orange the color of smoked salmon and Cheeto vomit…and a tear came to my eye.

Damn allergies. 

Here's to Russell and Marshawn,  the Legion of Boom  Michael, Cliff, Percy and every Twelve who's spent the past 21 weeks sweating and bleeding blue, green and occasionally wolf grey. You deserve this.

We deserve this.

The Seattle SuperSeahawks

Start spreading the news. 

The Blue Jerseys are coming to New Jersey—a fortnight for Richard Sherman to gnaw the Big Apple to a mealy sauce.

Or as Ted Suess Geisel might say, "The room is abloom with the Legion of Boom." 

The NFC champion Seattle Seahawks will play the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII. 

Holy bastard of Roosevelt! The Super Bowl? Are you kidding me? 

If you don't live in Seattle, trust me on this: championships here are as rare as a Michael Crabtree reception. In the past forty-five years of my Seattle sports fandom, only three teams have held the grail. The '79 Sonics won it all, as did the WNBA Storm, twice. Hell yes, I count the Storm, especially after ten years of watching the greatness of Sue Bird to Lauren Jackson.

We've come close on occasion. The Sonics reached the Finals two other times, including 1996, when they faced a couple of guys named Michael and Scottie—and lost. The NASL Sounders squared off in Soccerbowl 77 against the Pélé-led New York Cosmos—and lost.

But the Hawks' 2006 appearance in Super Bowl XL proved itself to be the greasy-haired step nephew of all Seattle's championship quests. Dropped passes and criminal officiating decided the outcome, delving my City of Moist into a dark, foggy hangover that no amount of breakfast burritos and tater tots could soothe.

Oh, sorry, forgot to mention the Mariners. Wait, no I didn't. Despite a Cinderella trip to the ALCS in 1995 and dominating teams in 2000 and 2001, the Mariners have yet to play in a World Series.

Anyway, so now we're back. By "we," I mean yeah, I'm every bit a part of the squad as Pete Carroll's chinos. I'm convinced that watching movies on Friday nights and wearing the same clothes for the games have contributed to and quite possibly assured victory the past two weekends. Perhaps my daughter's Russell Wilson t-shirt is the difference, who knows? Maybe the mojo comes when my wife puts her hair up like she did yesterday for the game.

If you have superstitious ritual, an outfit or any other weird thing you do to propel the team to our first Super Bowl victory, you bear the same responsibility as the rest of us. Please give, early and often. 

You could be the difference.