Since last night marked the second time in my life, and only the third time ever, that the Bears and Packers have met in the playoffs, allow me to lazily rehash an end-of-season post from 15 years ago. Deletions are struck through, additions are bolded.

It ended continued in just about the worst best way possible: losing to beating the Packers. In the playoffs. In Soldier Field. With the Halas Trophy on the line still in play, and giving denying the Packers a shot at the Lombardi Trophy. I say “just about the worst best way possible” because I’m sure there’s something that could have made it worse better. Maybe an extinction-level event shortly after the final whistle (though at least in that case the agony would have been short-lived) Mike Ditka snapping the Packers and Green Bay itself out of existence.

[…]

No, in this case, t The blame credit for Chicago’s devastating loss insane comeback victory rests with me. It was entirely my fault doing.

You see, my coed beer league soccer team had a quarterfinal match scheduled for 6:15. The field is thirty minutes away from my mansion. I would either have to miss part of the Bears game, or part of the quarterfinal. I decided to DVR the Bears game, watch until about 5:45, then hop in the car and listen on to the game on AM 930.

Everything was going according to plan. I hopped in the car, Bears down 14-7. I got to the field with a few minutes to spare, by which time it was Packers, 21-14. I put on my guards, socks, and cleats as Caleb Hanie led that fateful, final drive down the field…

But kickoff was coming. I took off wore my lucky C-shirt, which I wear during Bears games, and put on my soccer jersey. By the time I got to the sideline, Hanie had thrown the final interception and the game was over. If I’d waited just a few more minutes, or even worn the C-shirt underneath my jersey, the Bears undoubtedly would have won the whole damn game and that’s why they won.

I hereby apologize say “You’re welcome” to the players, coaches and personnel of the Chicago Bears, to the entire city of Chicago and state of Illinois, to my fellow Bears fans all over the world, including and especially President Obama and the Pope, and to the late George S. Halas, Edward “Dutch” Sternaman, and A. E. Staley, the founders of the Chicago Bears, and the late Virginia Halas McCaskey, whose kids might yet redeem themselves. I hang lift my head, in shame and sorrow, “singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning,” and vow to never again fail you by removing always wear the C-shirt during a Bears game.

There’ll be more to say in coming weeks, but I’m so happy about this win that I almost don’t care about the rest of the playoffs. It’s already a successful season: won the last two against the Packers, knocked them out of the playoffs in humiliating fashion, and the Bears may actually have a winner at quarterback. We’ll see.

I was going to save this for when it actually comes out, but who controls… never mind. Here:

“Do you know where you are, Winston?” asked O’Brien.

“I don’t know. I can guess. In the Ministry of Love.”

“Do you know how long you have been here?”

“I don’t know. Days, weeks, months–I think it is months.”

“And why do you imagine that we bring people to this place?”

“To make them confess.”

“’No, that is not the reason. Try again.”

“To punish them.”

“No!” exclaimed O’Brien. His voice had changed extraordinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and animated. “No! Not merely to extract your confession, not to punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Winston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you understand what I mean by that?”

O’Brien had sat down beside the bed, so that his face was almost on a level with Winston’s.

“Look me in the eyes. What is Animal Farm about?”

Winston thought. He knew what was meant by Animal Farm and that he himself had read Animal Farm. He also remembered it was about Stalin and the Bolsheviks, but whether it favored or criticized them he did not know. In fact he had not been aware that there was any message, just a bunch of talking animals and a vague sense that the horse had been wronged.

“I don’t remember.”

“Animal Farm is anti-capitalist. Do you remember that now?”

“Yes.”

“Animal Farm has always been anti-capitalist. Since Orwell first wrote it in World War II, since the dawn of dystopian literature, since the literal beginning of time itself, it has been anti-capitalist, without a break, always the same. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Decades ago you created a legend– that a man named Cliff wrote yellow study guides about classic literature. You pretended that you read one claiming Animal Farm was an anti-Stalinist allegory, because you were too lazy to read the actual book, which was just, like, ninety pages. Even with illustrations. But no such study guide never existed. You invented it, and later you grew to believe in it. You remember now the very moment at which you first invented it. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“Just now I held up the fingers of my hand to you. You saw five fingers. Do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

O’Brien held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed.

“There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?”