I am pretty sure that I am the reason that the Philadelphia Eagles lost on Saturday night.  Let me explain.

I woke up Saturday morning/afternoon with a terrible hangover.  This is not unusual, but this particular hangover was more vicious than most, because I had made a rookie mistake on Friday night and violated one of the basic rules of drinking: Never end the night drinking Belgian beer. 

The night started harmlessly enough; my friends Jeremy and Meredith came over to my place Friday night for some drinks and soon we were out and about, hopping from bar to bar, meeting different groups of friends.  I was only mildly drunk when at 2am we went to Stanton Public, a (relatively) new place halfway between my apartment and the heart of the Lower East Side.

There, between 2am and close (4am), I had several pints of Delirium Tremens, a beer with a whopping 9% alcohol content.  I’ve had this beer several times before and enjoy it, but it is to be enjoyed at the beginning of the night, when you’re quickly trying to lay down a nice base of drunkeness.  By drinking it at the end of the night, I went from "I’m having a nice evening and feeling fine" to "Jeremy, you’re going to have to help me in the bathroom."  My buddy and old roommate Brian, who joined us at Stanton Public with some friends at 3am, remarked to me both there and the next day that I looked "way out of sorts."  Coming from Brian, who is usually a walking zombie by 2am and is kindly asked to leave 40% of the bars he enters, this is about as damning as it gets.   

I don’t remember leaving the bar, but I think I walked home.  The next morning I woke up with the aforementioned tremendous hangover and when I finally left my bedroom and came into my living room, I found a giant – and completely empty – bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, which I imagined were consumed on the jagged, criss-crossing walk home and explained why my breath was especially bad and the origin of colorful granules of food caked under my fingernails.  And yes, for the umpteenth time, ladies, I am single. 

Once I got my wits about me on Saturday morning/early afternoon, I trekked out to Brooklyn to have brunch with a friend (which was lovely) and planned on watching both the late Eagles-Saints game and the early Colts-Ravens game at my buddy Mike’s apartment on the Upper West Side.  I got back from brunch at 2pm and the Colts-Ravens game started at 4:30pm, so that meant I had 2.5 hours to shake the hangover and prepare my buddy for the numerous Bud Lights, wings, sliders, and waffle cheese fries that awaited it. 

I’ve mentioned before that I love to read in the shower (yes, I’m getting to how I made the Eagles lose – hold on a second).  I do this to relax and because I’m sicko and sexual freak.  How I arrange it so that the book doesn’t get wet is that I sit in the tub as though I were taking a bath, my back planted against the back of the tub, my head almost touching the wall.  Then I point the showerhead at my feet and keep the drain open, so that the only thing that is getting wet are my feet.  I stay dry, I read a little bit, it’s a lovely thing, really.  It’s relaxing and the steam rising from the water alleviates hangovers quite well. 

I got in the shower to read at 3:15pm, figuring I had plenty of time to read, relax, and then cab it up to the UWS for the game.  This was an especially good session, not only because the book I am reading is excellent (I will recommend it later in the week when finished) and because I was hungover, but because the steam was prefect – just hot enough to feel invigorating and cleansing, but not hot enough to burn the flesh off my feet and ankles. 

I read only a little bit before I started feeling tired, so I put the book down (outside of the shower, of course).  I closed my eyes for a little bit and soaked up the steam.

Then I fell asleep.  Right there in the shower.  For over an hour.  I was awoken only by the beeping of my cell phone, as I had gotten a text message from my buddy Mike, asking, "Where the hell are you?"  Had Mike not texted me, I probably could have slept for several hours.  In the shower.  With the water running. 

(God, I’m fucking awesome.)

As I was late, I rushed out of the house and forgot to tivo the Eagles-Saints game, something I normally do with big Eagles games.  I hopped into a cab and was in Mike’s apartment in no time, drinking those Bud Lights and eating those wings, sliders, and cheese fries during the Colts-Ravens game.  I felt great. 

And then I said it.

"You know, if the Eagles make the Super Bowl, I’m going to get a live feed set up in my buddy Steve’s house – where I’ll watch the game – so that people can log onto the website during the game to watch us watching it."

If there was a record playing, it would have scratched.  If there we were drinking bottles (as opposed to cans), they would have broken on the floor.  But instantly, the handful of Philly fans I was watching the early game with swiveled their heads around to stare at me in astonishment.

"What did you just say?"

I meekly tried to talk my way out of it, pointing out that I said "If…", but there was no use.  Just as the night before I had violated a basic rule of drinking, I had violated the number one rule of being a Philly fan: Never, ever talk about the future success of your team.

The result?  A 27-24 victory by the New Orleans Saints over the Philadelphia Eagles.  I won’t get much into the substance of the game – like why go for it on 4-and-10 but not 4-and-15 when you know they’re going to run the ball and had success all game in doing so up to that point (the Saints had 190+ yards rushing at the time) OR where Brian Dawkins was (I heard his name once, I think, on an assisted tackle) OR why Brian Westbrook only had 13 carries – because I got pretty drunk during the game and spent much of my time on the toilet, what with the hangover and the wings and sliders and beers and such. 

The point is that the season is over and I feel responsible, which makes me even more miserable.  Adding to my misery is that somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that maybe, just maybe, this was our year.  Look at the NFC – it’s a fucking shit-show.  I, like many others, believed all along that all a team had to do was get into the playoffs and then see what happens from there.  The Eagles got to the playoffs, won a game, and then lost an entirely winnable game.

The Eagles losing to the Saints was like getting dumped by your girlfriend just when you’re ready to propose to her.  You met her and were skeptical and there were some rough stretches, because she could be totally fucking insane-o.  But then you started having good sex – not just "early relationship sex" but "we’ve been together long enough for me to ask you to act out the shower scene in ‘Trailer Trash Nurses 6′ and you’re ok with that" sex – and you’re willing to dear with her craziness.  You even begin to find it endearing.  Then you met her friends and her parents and her family and they seem nice, and more importantly, they like you very much.  Things are going well.  You have made it past those things that give couples problem and seem on your way to a happy relationship.

And then, just when you think it’s smooth sailing, she dumps you.  Worse, she does so for no apparent reason.

This is how I feel about the 2006 Eagles.  We had already gotten over our adversity when McNabb went out (getting to the good sex and getting over the craziness).  Then, during that brutal six game stretch at the end of the season, we went 5-1 (meeting the parents and friends and such).  It seemed like now, once we were in the playoffs, this would be the easy part – nothing could be as hard as losing our star quarterback and having six tough, tough games to close the year.

Instead, after all that work, we have to start completely over from scratch.  You have to find a new girl, get over her craziness, get to the porn-caliber sex, and meet and win the approval of her friends and family.  Because all the work you just put in went down the tubes in one inexplicable evening.

And frankly, at this point, I just doing feel like doing it.  I think I need a little break from Philly sports, because once again, I’ve been burned and burned badly.  It is becoming downright cruel the way that our sports lives are playing out.  I don’t know whose idea of a joke this is, but I wish he/she would die.  Or at least become maimed.

But as of today, I’m on a break.  I don’t want to think about Philly or Philly sports for a little while, because I’ve been hurt.  Maybe I’ll play the field a little bit – root for the Celtics one night, then the Senators the next, maybe buy myself a Denver Broncos hat – just to see what’s out there.  In the meantime, I’m going to sit at my computer, drink a little whiskey, smoke some doobs, and listen to Ray Lamontagne’s "I Go All To Pieces."  Because I need some me time.     

[Also, now that the Eagles' season is over, I shaved my beard.  What a tremendous mistake.  In one fell swoop, I've made myself uglier (well, less handsome), fatter, paler, colder, and - believe it or not - older-looking.  I forgot that the reason I have a beard in the first place, aside from its obvious low-maintenance benefits, is because I have the smallest lips/mouth in the world and no chin.  The bottom half of my face is basically lots of paleness, chubby cheeks, two very thin pink lips, then neck.  Ugh.  Not to mention that since last night I've had to deal with a steady stream of people seeing me and exclaiming, "Oh my god - you shaved your beard!", said with the same tone and inflection as one would said, "Oh my god - you're fucking a dog!"  Terrible, just terrible.  Tomorrow, I'm wearing a fake beard to work.  This is going to be a long - and chaste - two weeks.  And no, there will not be pictures.]