*excessive booing*

What's really odd is that I don't miss sports very much, given how much time I spent watching them in the Before Times. I should be rooting on the Bucks in the NBA playoffs right now and lamenting/mocking something ridiculous that just happened to the Mets. I mean, who the hell forgot to lock the cage for the zebra that sang the national anthem so it could escape and trample Brandon Nimmo in centerfield like that? Poor guy's teeth will never be the same. The New York Post will be buzzing for weeks.

But no. Instead the homepage for ESPN features trick ping-pong shots and backyard football heroics that are readily available almost anywhere else online. Why bother typing in the URL anymore? So I don't. Instead I occupy my time with many other things that are at least as bad for my brain as worrying about Aaron Rodgers' knees, but I have no real absence in my soul being without the ritual of watching athletes compete. It feels strange.

I bought a bag of peanuts in the shell last fall when they were on sale and have never gotten around to eating them. They're a little like pistachios in that it's a snack you have to commit to, though somehow whenever I was peckish and encountered them, I would decline. Seeing that bag sitting there on the shelf each time, I'd think: you just wait 'til baseball season. Then y'all are goners.

Because I legit thought the Mets could contend this year. The back end of their rotation was sketchy, sure. Still, there was still the possibility of Cespedes coming back midseason. Their fielding was always going to suck, but it seemed like the offense could make up for it like they did last year, maybe even more. Plus the bullpen looked like they could really gain some ground and be formidable, though I'm admittedly a homer and think that every year. But if any of that happened and they were winning, how could I not find myself craving a salty ballpark snack?

Instead the peanuts sit untouched in my pantry, forever waiting for some forgotten seventh inning stretch to kick in. Presumably they'll go bad at some point, and I suppose I should look into that. But watching mold spores grow in the kitchen is apparently as entertaining to me as college gameday anymore, which is surely the sign of something, though I'm not sure what. Maybe just that I was pretty boring in the Before Times too.