One Whining Moment, Again

×

Expand

Art Kumbalek

I’m Art Kumbalek and man oh manischewitz what a world, ain’a? Listen, as a longstanding lapsed Catholic, somehow I gosh darn still get compulsed to make a personal sacrifice when Lenten season strikes. One thing I know, I sure don’t have the personal constitution to ape the Lord and do something like fast for 40 days out in the wilderness. No way could I pull that off; although, to be fair and balanced to myself, that was probably a little easier for him to do than it would be me, after all, from the pictures I’ve seen of the Lord, he really didn’t look like a very big eater to begin with, I kid you not.

I have considered maybe giving up symphony conducting ’til the Easter. But on the off-chance I were to get a call to mount the podium and twirl the baton for a bunch of bow-slingers hacking their way through some Rimsky-Tchaikovsky, I can’t afford to turn down a paying gig, so what the fock.

Timeout: Hey, why’d the orchestra conductor get booed at the grocery store? He forgot his Chopin-Liszt. Ba-ding-a-ding-ding!)

Hold on a cotton-focking-picking minute here, stop the music, stop the music. I should warn you not to expect much of an essay this week. This essay will be infected neither by length nor dense ponderance (you’re focking welcome) on account of because I’ve come down with a case of this March Madness, a debilitation I’m struck by annually—usually this time of year, go figure.

And with Holy Week fast approaching, I feel behooved to take time off from the day-to-day godforsaken rat race of modern American economics, and to bless myself with a retreatfully quiet period so as to observe and religiously fulfill the solemn task of completing my bracket-form-thing for this year’s Men’s NCAA College Basketball Tournament, praise the lord.

A symptom of this madness can be identified as the craving to screw your employer out of days of honest labor because you are sick with the need to contemplate and complete successfully the tournament bracket form wherein you predict the victor of each and every of 60-plus games just so’s you can win a couple, three bucks in your pool, which will afford you the ability to explain to your fellow contestants/employees what a bunch of losers they are, have always been, and always will be.

Over the years of participating in these yearly collegiate bracket pools, I’ve learned that pissing away eight hours a day of company time on making my selections just wasn’t getting the job done—that if I planned to enjoy myself one shining championship moment with the seashells and balloons, I really had to put up huge numbers in the “Lost Worker-Productivity” department this time around.

This was especially true with last year’s bout of the madness. To focking wit: Somehow, my own selection for the 2014 Final Four included the Electoral College, and my championship-game had the New Jersey Institute of Technology hitting the hardwood against the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Yes, they are the same school. Yes, neither one qualified for the tournament in 2014. But I had always heard and believed that anything can happen in the NCAAs; so I thought, what the fock, go for the long shot ’cause who the hell else would have a team playing itself in the final game? I’ll tell you’s who. A guy who didn’t take the time to study. A guy like me.

So I leave now to study some colleges I never knew existed, investing an amount of time that will supersede that which the entire Kentucky roundball squad will spend in a classroom any given year. And speaking of March madness, if you’re still hungover from St. Patty’s Day Week-and-a-focking-Half, here’s a little story that may make you feel better:

A young Irish lad had fallen in love with a girl and felt the relationship had gone far enough to take her home to meet his family. One fine Sunday evening the lad, his lady friend and the rest of the family (about 23 members, wouldn’t you know) were gathered around the dining room table. The matriarch of the family asked the girlfriend, “So, tell me, lass, what is your occupation?”

The lass hesitated a moment, then said, “Truth is Mrs. O’Malley, I’m a prostitute.” Well sir, the lad’s mother fainted away then and there, surrounded by the 23 family members who splashed her face with water and such. Finally, she regained consciousness and returned to her seat, the family calmed down and the meal resumed. By and by, the O’Malley lad’s mother once again inquired, “Forgive me, dearie. Perhaps I did not hear you correctly earlier. What is that you do?”

Again the girl answered, “I’m a prostitute, ma’am.”

This time Mrs. O’Malley did not faint. Instead, she laughed and raised her glass, “Oh my, dearie, for a moment there I thought you said you were a Protestant!”

O’ ba-ding! ’cause I’m Art Kumbalek and I told you so.