Greetings, loyal WeAreIndy.com reader! Paddy O’ checking in for a weekend update and to see if I have perhaps won any new awards since I last posted on these venerable pages. You see, kind reader, Rick O’ has recently gone about creating new awards (contractually obligated shout-out to Dean!), which I think is designed to mostly kill time bolster readership in this, our off season. Always being a person who has no issues riding someone’s coat tails, I, too, would like to announce a new, and far more prestigious, award.
As of today, any post that actually makes sense stands above the general rabble shall be awarded with the “Distinguished Excellence in Respectable Posting” award, better known as DERP. Now, in my mind, no one better exemplifies DERP more than our very own Rick O’Shay. He is, by far, the DERPiest blogger to ever grace these pages. In fact, such is his level of DERPitude, that I am not sure if anyone else will ever qualify for this award.
I mean, how could any future post ever compare to such gems as “Grid Iron Chef” (wine with football? What the what?)? Or how about the “Philosophy of Phandom“, which certainly exemplifies “tl;dr” , if not true DERP? Never have my words, written or otherwise, ever reached the same levels of DERP attained by Rick O’. I would challenge him on this point, but I know that it’s a moot point. Besides, it would be a bit unfair, seeing as how I suffer from a rare disease known as “MOOPS“, or “Mediocre, Often Obtuse, Posting Syndrome”.
Now that the awards have been dispensed with, it is time to move on to why I referenced high school in the title of this post. You see, dear reader, in my mind this preseason is very similar to a summer I lived through in the mid 1980s…the summer right before I started high school.
It was, a summers go, rather enjoyable, with the exception of a great unknown hanging over me. I was about to embark on the next phase of my education and I was left with a lingering sense of dread. Everything I had known up to that point was about to change and I knew that what was once a comfortable situation was going to change forever.
Yes, I had taken a tour of the school (or, for the purposes of this post, Lucas Oil), so I was familiar with the layout. But I knew that there would be a sea of new faces confronting me when I officially walked through the front door on that first day of school. There would so many new names to learn and everything would be foreign and unexpected.
Looking back, it was the anticipation that I found the most unsettling. It lingered over me and was always at the front of my mind. I knew, in theory at least, what to expect, but there were still so many questions unanswered inside my head, questions that wouldn’t be answered until the year began and I found a way to assimilate myself into the routine.
So that is exactly how I have been feeling this preseason. We have an entirely new roster, with new names to learn. We have a new coach and more than likely, a new playbook. Everything we have known and held dear about the Colts for the past 14 years is gone forever. Things may end up being worse… it may (eventually) be better. Only time will tell. The only certainty in the situation is that everything is going to change.
And that is always unsettling.
I am speachless…..