an inverse correlation

My brother-in-law, my dad, and I spent a good part of the afternoon descending into madness. It started when snow canceled the Mariners doubleheader, forcing us to watch the Lakers take on the Suns. Steve Nash was running circles around LA defenders, Raja Bell was simultaneously holding Kobe to under 50 and knocking down threes, so in the end Phoenix won handily.

That done, we started to get nervous. Wasn't much else on the sports schedule, at least on the basic cable lineup, so we flipped over to The Masters, where some guy beat Tiger Woods despite finishing a stroke over par. Riveting.

That led to a half hour of a rerun of this year's Seattle regional spelling bee, the one I won a number of years ago. (Spelling bees are pretty easy in retrospect. C'mon, can't spell "consortium?" Nerd.) Highlight: the pronouncer's first name was Feliks. How can they let you emcee if you can't even spell your own name?

When that drama was done, I left for a bathroom break, only to return to raucous laughter--the laughter of madmen. My dad and the bro-in-law were watching professional wrestling, where a half-contact battle royale had broken out in the ring. Dubbed in Spanish, grown men in spandex, faking kicks and punches, assaulting their dignity and not much else.

It was tragic. I almost couldn't watch.

When Dad suggested playing a round of Turbo Yahtzee, we meekly went along. I'd have plotted that level of desperation on the graph, but I ran out of room.