This weekend, the machines rose, humanity teetered on the brink and we were shown once again the ugly truth of technology and the Big Lie we're told that it works for our good.
OK, maybe you missed it. There was nice weather, so maybe you got outside a bit.
Whatever you were doing, all the aforementioned bad stuff happened and we were powerless to stop it, held as we were in its evil sway.
Yes, this last weekend, at the penultimate moment, with so much at stake, so much on the line, so much riding on it, ESPN's Fantasy Football application crashed.
For basically the six people in Northwest Arkansas who don't partake of Fantasy Football or who aren't related to someone who bores them with his or her mental gymnastics and self-created torments over the consequences of roster selection, let me assure you: This was a big deal.
Fantasy Football is either a huge, vibrant and growing activity for millions of people or a complete waste of time and money and proof that a lot of folks have more of both than they need to be trusted with. These conflicting views tend to depend on whether your team is 1-0 or 0-1 right now, so objectivity may be hard to come by.
Team "owners" select actual NFL players to be on their "teams" and their success from week to week is measured by the compiled stats of their squad. So, for those of us who spent hours preparing for the pre-season draft (or, who clicked on a few NFL-related websites, got bored and scrolled through pictures of deck boats for a few hours), the opening day of the NFL season gave us an opportunity to show the world just how smart we are, or what great judges of professional football (and therefore any important thing in life) we are. Or, how things are going to be much better with only a few minor tweaks, since, hey, it's a long season and don't be so quick to judge.
Of all the organizations that offer Fantasy Football tracking services, ESPN, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (you know, the name sounds kinda dull when you go beyond the abbreviations, doesn't it?), is probably the biggest.
And remember, Fantasy Football is a huge deal. The president probably plays in his own White House League (here's where you insert a mental image of the commander-in-chief jumping up at a Cabinet meeting and shouting at the secretary of health and human services, "Dan Bailey, 17 points! How you like me now, Burwell!?").
Except, this Sunday, when the season kicked off in earnest (and Seattle and Dallas and lots of other places, too), he didn't get to trash-talk a minor Cabinet member because the site was down and he didn't know that the previously mentioned Cowboy was leading all kickers in scoring. I mean, yeah, he could have done the math, but he's a busy guy. Running the Free World and all.
I, on the other hand, was a little less significantly obligated, and yet, there I was, futilely hitting the "refresh" button on the ESPN app and watching the spinning Pinwheel of Death before being told some very techy version of "Nope."
My first impulse, of course, was to blame my Wi-Fi provider. My second was to assume I had done something wrong before, realizing, naaah, that couldn't be it and going back to blaming whoever it is now that makes all those little lights blink on the box under our TV.
And when other members of my league started texting me, I realized that it couldn't be that we were a collection of idiots (well, it could be that, but the current situation wasn't proving it) and that a cataclysmic emergency had occurred.
I alternate between blaming the Russians and the North Koreans. Which means my paranoia is either driven by current events or versions of the movie Red Dawn.
Thankfully, our long (well, it seemed long) national nightmare was over. By Monday, someone at ESPN's headquarters unplugged the toaster oven and plugged the computers back in. They were able to determine I had started three of their top five most disappointing players in Week One. So, I had that going for me.
Still, the experience has left me scarred. No longer will I trust our most highly regarded institutions. No more will I buy what technology is selling. No more will I be a slave to the machine!
At least not after I move Melvin Gordon into my starting lineup. I mean, double-digit points last week. Sweet!
Commentary on 09/16/2016