World Cup Fever

Unlike so many of my friends, I was fortunate enough NOT to succumb to "World Cup Fever."

The whole thing got to be truly preposterous. The impassioned Facebook status updates ("Go USA! We're still in this!"); the hasty purchase of officially-licensed, grossly overpriced 'Team USA' gear; the tired old debate about whether soccer had finally "arrived" as part of the American cultural fabric.

The answer is, it did not (and it never will.) But what, beyond the irresistible jingoism of rooting for our boys to kick tail in an international competition, got people so excited in the first place? It certainly couldn't be the simple charms of watching guys run willy-nilly around a big grass field for 90 minutes to pretty much.....not score any points (unless you're a Chicago Bears fan; this, after all, is what you've grown used to.....)

Alas, with the dust having finally settled on our teams loss to mighty Ghana (!), I think I may have figured this out.

America is down. Way down. We all know it. We can't stop terrorism, our economy is in shambles. Hell, we can't even stop an oil leak, for corn sakes. Who really wants to be American right now? It hardly carries the cache it did in the past. So, along comes the World Cup....and we can all pretend to be European for a few weeks!

Suddenly, soccer is "football." Suddenly, we all like going to bars and watching soccer....er, I mean, football....while loudly singing group limericks, just like the folks in London do! "Look at us, world.....we're FOOTBALL FANATICS, just like the rest of you who don't live in a country where Sarah Palin could become the next President......"

Yep, this silly little game became a pure, unfettered dose of cultural escapism. It was our summer vacation overseas, brought to you by the good folks at ABC and ESPN. It took us away from the monotony of baseball and Tea Party rhetoric. And now.....it's over.

Oh, I could make fun of you all for awhile, but, like America herself, I'm bigger than that. I forgive your wholehearted, petty, but ultimately fruitless flirtation with other, "higher" cultures. I simply say: welcome back to reality, former soccer-crazy Americans. Count your blessings that you're not REALLY British (vanquished at their national game by the Huns, and still responsible for Tony Heyward) and take heart in the fact that REAL football is just around the corner.