No.  This is not some sexual fantasy article.  For the love of God, I’m 56.  The only fantasy like that I have these days is of kissing a woman without my new teeth falling out.

This is about Fantasy Football.  And don’t worry if you know nothing about football or fantasy football.  Neither, apparently, do I.  So you have every reason to continue reading.

My adult son got me into Fantasy Football last season.  He got me into it again this year.  I thought being a one-season veteran, things would be better for me this year.  Not so.

The fantasy season actually begins a few weeks or days before they start playing real professional football.  All the fantasy players gather on-line to pick the real players they want on their fantasy team.  Get it?  No, I don’t either.  But we get to “draft” NFL players just like real teams do.

So there are about 10 real guys for the on-line draft.  Each guy has 2-minutes to pick a real player for his fantasy team.  Then, a few minutes later, each guy gets another 2-minutes to pick another player, and so on.  Do you have any idea of the pressure this places on someone like me?  I don’t think you do.

Look – I hate fast food drive thru windows.  I love the convenience, and it does allow me to keep listening to an old Dave Clark Five tune or something on the car radio.   But actually trying to communicate a difficult food order through that damned speaker freaks me out.  The whole time I am waiting in line, I recite to myself my order.  Over and over again.  I actually PRACTICE what I am going to order.  Then my turn comes.  I clearly and deliberately repeat into the speaker the same words I have been reciting to myself in my car.  I am always focused.  I always know that I can do this.  Then, just as the chorus of “Glad All Over” rings out inside my car, the crackling voice on the other end of the drive-thru speaker says something like, “So you want the value meal that comes with cheese?”  

“What value meal?” I say to myself.  “I never said value meal!”  

Then to the crackling voice I say, “I don’t want a value meal.”  And I repeat what I had been reciting to myself.

“Yeh, but the value meal is a much better deal. Even if you GET the cheese, you can always scrape it off.”

“What value meal!?!?  All I want is......”  And the game continues until I finally just say, “Give me whatever you want.  I’m tired.  I’m hungry.  I just don’t care anymore.”

This thing I have with drive thru windows – the frustration, the angst, the confusion – my son knows all about.  He’s been with me many times over the years when I’ve had a drive-thru lane meltdown.  I think it used to scare the little guy a bit.  Now that he’s grown, he just sits in the passenger seat and laughs until tears run down his cheeks.  And I think it’s the young man’s very sick sense of humor that led him to encourage me to join Fantasy Football.  The experience is very similar to Burger King drive-thru food orders.

So on “draft night,” I sit at my computer along with the other 9 guys in the fantasy league.  I’m on the phone with my son as well.  He’s one of the other 9 guys.  I can detect him laughing at me even before we start.  I can’t tell for sure.  But I sense it.  So, I’m looking at list of hundreds of names of professional football players while my son is spouting out statistics and strategies and trying his best to guide me through this incredible maze of names and player positions.  Or – is he really trying to confuse me even more?  Just for the laughs?

Who cares?  At this point, my problems are so much bigger than his possible motives for putting me through this hell.

As I stare at all the names and numbers, I suddenly hear what used to be sort of an appealing ESPN jingle tune.  On this night that sound means that I have just 2-minutes to pick a player for my team.  TWO MINUTES?  I scan all the names.  I scroll the screen down and up and over.  I utter, “What the hell?”  I hear laughter on the other end of the phone.  I continue to scour the meaningless list.

I see no Joe Namath.  No Jim Brown.  No Johnny Unitas.  No Mercury Morris.  I know no one on this list.  Meanwhile, that ESPN tune is growing louder and the clock at the top of the page is flashing as my two minutes are running out.  Suddenly, I begin to hear in my mind again, “Even if you GET the cheese, you can always scrape it off.”  So, I freak out again, and at the last possible moment pick some guy with two thousand syllables in his name, someone I certainly have never heard of.  But I have to pick.  So I do.

Who are all these new guys anyway?  What happened to the football stars I know?  That I used to watch?  What ever happened to Lawrence Taylor?  Why isn’t Joe Montana still playing?   I didn’t find Jerry Rice anywhere on that list.

And who’s this kid, Rogers, playing quarterback for Green Bay?  I know Bart Starr’s not the guy anymore, but I thought the Packers had a fresh young kid named, Favors or Farber or something.  What happened to him?

Needless to say – but since I’m doing a lot of things I don’t NEED to do these days, I will say it anyway – my fantasy team is a real loser again this year.  So I think I’m going to drop out of the Fantasy Football League.  Instead, well - I can use the time to practice keeping the teeth in.  Sorry, son.

For a look at some of my real fantasies, click HERE for “More Lunacy.”