Pope-season action

Post #53 Topic: WTF Pope!

In case you’ve been buried under a rock for the past few days, or perhaps you just don’t care, the pope is in town. WHOO HOO! Now I promise to all of my readers (Steve) that I will do everything in my power to not make any religiously fueled comments in this here column, but please forgive me if my angst takes the place of reason.

So I’m off from school for a week for Passover; some Jewish holiday (how am I doing?). Having no reason to stay in manhattan and pay $12 for crappy sushi lunch specials every day, I decided to take a ride home and spend my week in Westchester studying for my finals (or at least planning what I will do when I actually do start studying). So the other day, after school, my friend picked me up at my apartment to drive me home. What usually takes AT MOST 45 minutes, took us a whopping 1:45 – completely unacceptable by any means. But these things happen. So I overlooked the traffic, deciding not to let anything interfere with my weekend of piece and quiet and homemade matzoh balls.

But there was one more obstacle in my way before I could truly sink into my good old twin size bed and 12 inch, 15 channel getting TV (thankfully ESPN made the selective cut). For the first seder, I had to go to my aunt and uncle’s house in dirty jerz. Typically this ride takes us no more than 1:30 each way, which is the perfect amount of time to crank up some dark side on my pod and take a heady nap. After piling into the family car, we made a right onto Mamaroneck, a right onto the hutch and merged onto the cross county parkway where the road usually opens up. And there it was again, insane traffic. Traffic so bad that there was traffic in the lane that lead to the highway that lead to the ramp that lead to the original highway (but a different direction). I’m not talking about your 20mph, bearable traffic… I’m talking not moving; I’m talking 2.5 hrs to get to the G-Dubs bridge when it should NEVER take more than 20 minutes.

What was the source of all this traffic you ask? It wasn’t cloverfield, the bridge didn’t collapse, there was no 12-car pile-up and there was no truck fire. Nope… it was the pope. The pope, the father of the catholic religion decide to pick PASSOVER, the holiest of jewish holidays to visit new york, and with him came over a billion cars (no joke I counted).

Having departed at 3 pm, and arriving at 6:30 pm, I was pissed. But not nearly as pissed as I was when we left New Jerz and discovered that an entire highway would be closed to guarantee the pope’s safe passage the next morning to the… get this… to the BRONX. We left Jersey at 10 pm, full from crappy food and forced familial conversation. We got home at 2:30 AM – I was and am still pissed. WTF POPE?

Well thank god (get it?) for Sunday. Sunday was shaping up to be a great day of sports. For the 1^st time, B-ball fans could see just how dominant Dwight Howard was. The result – 25 points, 22 rebounds and a couple million senses of defeat in Toronto after but one game. How do I know this stat line? From ESPN.com. Why didn’t I watch it? BECAUSE EVERY GOSH DARN CHANNEL WAS SHOWING THE POPE.

The Red Wings were supposed to play the predators at 3, on national tv, a rarity for the NHL. The Red Wings are perennial President Trophy Candidates, roll 4 vicious lines, have several of the NHL’s best defensemen of ALL TIME (Lidstrom, Chellios… KRONWALL (chron-vall)???), but mysteriously have been struggling as of late to get past the 1^st few rounds. So I watched the game… on CBSSPORTSLINE.COM’s GAME TRACKER. Why??? Guess what was being shown on NBC? Not the NHL PLAYOFFS! Nope; CBS was showing the pope.

My main man, my best friend from Syracuse, my boy for life Carmelo Anthony was supposed to take on the Lakers at 3 PM on NBC. The Lakers are most expert’s favorites but I personally like the Nuggets behind a miraculous performance from Allen Iverson to come out on top in the series. THIS was a series I was looking forward to watching. A series for which I went out and bought a whole box of Pop-Secret Homestyle Popcorn (this is clearly the best microwave popcorn, if you haven’t tried it you’re missing out on life). Now, THIS is a series for which I am left anticipating game two – Thanks pope!

Now I don’t know how long these things last. But from watching a few minutes I know two things – everyone in yankee stadium is asleep and the pope talks really really slowly. I hope, against all odds, that these two observations don’t imply that this thing is going to go all night – I really want to catch the Mets and Phils at 8. Amen.

Other Nnotes

Apparently Tomato Plants aren’t for sale until Mother’s day – thanks Dr. Zizmor.

She’s an easy lover, she’ll take your heart but you won’t feel it.

I’ll call you on Wednesday.

The rumors are true, the pope really does have a sweet-ass hat.

And that Alien was Robin Williams – his name was mork.