Defeat

Some words so accurately describe the sensory of their meaning. Prickly feels ouchie. Fuzzy sounds soft. Cozy sounds comforting. Triumph feels positively powerful. Defeat. There is a word that sounds exactly how it feels. Loaded. Wounding and weighted. Like a gut punch. Ugh. 

When you’re a San Francisco 49ers fan married to a Seattle Seahawks fan, and it’s the morning after your 41-6 defeat (more like a slaughter – also an accurate sounding word), it’s worse, on so many levels. Three minutes into the biggest game of our season it was over. We were done. Season over.

I felt for my quarterback, baby-faced Brock Purdy. He had a tough night – no, a tough season. So many injuries, including his own, plagued (great word) their season. I’m not making excuses, but come on, we got dealt a blow from the start. Yet it all solidified for me that I am a 49er faithful forever.

Sunday morning was rough though. Not only because I ate an entire bag of low sodium-chips but suffered full-sodium results (puffy is an accurate word), but because the Carpenter was over-the-top cheerful.

“Hey, Kel,” he yelled up the stairs to me from the living room, his voice erupting the peaceful solitude of my home office, where I was finding my calm in folk music and creative pursuits.

I knew what was coming and I couldn’t ignore him. Resistance would only fan the flames. I had to take the chirping like the sore loser I was. It’s just part of the deal. So I got up and walked into the hallway to subject myself to his childish jests.

“Do you know what Brock Purdy does when he wins the Super Bowl?” he asked, grinning. 

He was so jacked up for the punchline, like a preschooler who wants to tell you their first fart joke. 

My mythical powers to stare him into stone, like Medusa, and silence his smug mouth, weren’t working, because despite my focused turn-you-to-stone glare, he was enthusiastically shifting his balance from one foot to the other, like that same preschooler who needs a potty, anticipating my reaction to his high jinks. 

Sigh. Blink hard once more. Come on Medusa powers, don’t fail me now. Ugh. This just isn’t going to be my week. I braced myself for impact. Here it comes. 

“He puts his X-Box controller down,” the Carpenter said, delivering that line like he was sliding cold pizza into a hot oven. Awkward pause. And then a burst of laughter, his, not mine. 

“I’ve got more. I’ll send you some. Sorry, but these are just too good not to share. I can’t help myself. I’ll send them to your account.” 

With that he turned the corner into the kitchen, still laughing.

I turned on my heel the way a King’s Guard outside Buckingham Palace would, and marched back into my sanctuary, chuckling quietly, because truth: that was pretty funny. All in the spirit of fun, but defeat is not fun.

Ram is also a good word. As in, LA Rams. As in ram you into the ground. 

Come on Puka, win it for Kelly. 

Giggle.