I called my friend Gwenn on my lunch minute on Friday. (Yeah that's right, I worked on the Friday after Thanksgiving...I had to...you see, the Poverty Fairy has not only paid me a visit--I think that bitch is bunking with me now!)

We both knew I was calling to discuss the almost total humiliation of the Bucs on Thanksgiving Day, but we're women--we can't get straight to the point.

"If Libby doesn't get back soon, I don't know how I'm gonna keep from killing that cat of hers. It's just gotten to the point where it seems like it's the right thing to do." Yes, my not-so-sensitive friend is pet-sitting an elderly, bipolar cat for a friend. We'd been on the phone Wednesday night when she walked into Libby's house and I could hear her sniffer hard at work. "Let me call you back in a few--this cat has shit somewhere."

She called me back on her drive home.

"Had she shit? Was she proud?"

"Hell yeah, that bitch was proud. She met me at the door, her tail high in the air, and then she turned and started trotting towards the rug. She kept looking back to make sure I was following...and she'd mew every once in a while, as if to say 'Lookey here, lookey here.' She'd bombed Libby's rug three times, not once missing and hitting the floor, mind you. That cat's got one helluva an accurate ass."

We laughed and laughed...but that was back when the cat's bombs were of the solid form. By Friday, Gwenn couldn't joke about cat shit. So we moved towards the real reason for the call:

"And?"

"Yeah I watched it. We got our asses kicked."

"Gwenn, we came out in that opening drive and executed the perfect two-minute drill. It was nice to see Gruden allow the long pass to Joey G. And we did it again and got a field goal for our efforts. I was so pleased early in the game."

And then Gwenn resurrected our martyr, the one whose second-coming, in the minds of every Bucs fan I know, will surely right things. "I wonder how different that game would've been if we'd still had John Lynch." And an eerie silence fell as his ghost rushed our souls.

"We'd have still lost, I think, but the game would've been different," I surmised, ever-doubtful that we've yet met our saviour.  

"Well, that little fucker would've lost some of his passing game, I can promise you that."

"Gwenn," I ventured, "I'm beginning to get the impression that you're not on board this Romo-train that folks are jumping on left and right."

"Oh no--I don't like him. At all. Smarmy little bastard with that shit-eating grin. Can't stand him."

"I think he's someone we need to watch but I agree--he don't look right. I think it's because he looks like he smells like pee." We laughed, then I continued. "You remember that kid at the back of the class that all of the other kids avoided--you could just look at him and your nose hairs would curl up? That's him--you never outgrow that look, y'know."

Now you look at him and I dare you to tell us we're wrong.