Fickle Pickles

People are fickle (I’m not even sure that I know much about that word other than that it rhymes with pickle and tickle). I think fickle has fallen into disfavor in modern English, but I’m going to describe what I mean by it. I’ve taken to listening to some sports talk radio the last couple months (although I can only take about half an hour at a time because they basically say the same things over and over, kind of like TV evangelists) and it has gotten to the point of hilarity. I’m going to use the talk that’s gone on about the Broncos this year as an example of my definition of fickle (how postmodern (or ultramodern?) (or post postmodern?) of me to have my own definition of fickle).

After a week one loss to the Dolphins: “(By the way all my quotations are not actual quotations, just conglomerates of what I remember people saying and what I know they were thinking) I think it’s time for this team to start over. They’re going to have a long season and lose a lot of games. They need to start thinking about who to keep and what parts of the team to revamp all together. I think it might be time for Mike Shanahan to move on to another team. This is just not a team that can hang with the better teams in the NFL. Let’s start thinking about the draft, we’ll probably have a pick in the top five (which means they’d be one of the worst five teams in the NFL). They may even have to drop beer prices to get people to keep coming to the games.”

In increasing intensity over the next four weeks when they won four in a row: “This is a team that should win their division and maybe even challenge for the Super Bowl. The defense looks great and Jake Plummer just isn’t making the mistakes he made last year. You know who he’s starting to remind me of … one John Elway. Okay, that might be a little much, after all John Elway is a god, not a mortal, but Jake is doing well. I just don’t see how people are going to be able to stop the Broncos. This is one of the top teams in the league. Raise those beer prices!”

After the team’s fifth straight win to take them to 5-1: “If you are not on the Broncos bandwagon what’s your problem?!? This is a great team! They should play their backups when they make it to the Super Bowl just to give the other team a chance.”

After a one point loss to the Giants on the last play of the game (who are the highest scoring team in the NFL (and the game was in New York (actually in New Jersey, don’t ask me why a New York team plays in New Jersey))): “What a debacle! How could the Broncos blow this game? Looks like a repeat of the last couple years (the Broncos started 5-1 the last couple years too and then kind of tailed off), we’re going down. Hopefully the Broncos can still pull out a 9-7 or 10-6 season and squeak into the playoffs with a wildcard. But even if they do they just aren’t good enough to go very far. Maybe it’s time to think about dismantling this team and starting over. Who’s thirsty?”

So that’s my definition of fickle, hope you enjoyed it.