It's A Very SJ.com Christmas VI...starring IJAG!!!

That's right. It's a pre-dawn Christmas Eve tradition unlike any other: The SportsJournalists.com Christmas tale in which a disgruntled message board poster is shown what life would be like if he/she did not become a sportswriter. This year, my wonderful friend imjustagirl gets the Xmas story treatment.

If I forgot you, I humbly apologize. It was probably an accident. Well, with one or two exceptions, at least. Merry Christmas everyone!

A Very SportsJournalists.com Christmas VI

Copy editor I.M. Justagirl sat at her cubicle inside the offices of a fairly well-known sport news conglomerate and glared at the computer screen in front of her. It was late, she was tired and the last thing she wanted to see were more spelling errors, more incorrect tenses and more incorrect grammar.

“The Lions lost its record 16th straight game…” Aaaaaaaaaaargh that’s THEIR!

“Wide reciever Terrel Owens…” GODDAMNIT IT’S I BEFORE E EXCEPT AFTER C YOU FUCKING IDIOT! AND TWO Ls, NOT ONE!

Misplaced words…an “a” instead of an “an”…quotes outside punctuation instead of inside it…these fucking people. Was it that difficult to write and edit readable wire copy? Honestly?

Enough of this shit, IJAG thought to herself as she rubbed her forehead. She closed out of the story she was reading and logged on to sportsjournalists.com, figuring she could relieve some tension there. Maybe schiezainc posted something stupid and she could unload on him. Or maybe someone has a good Secret Santa story. Or maybe, if all else failed, she’d Heathersjack a thread.

Except the first thread she saw on Anything Goes sunk her even deeper into a rage: “Thanks Guns-n-Roses: I got my can of Dr. Pepper today!” wrote some jackass.

“THERE IS NO FUCKING PERIOD IN DR PEPPER!” IJAG screamed. She punched the computer, pushed her chair away from the desk and stormed out of the office into the arctic air. She wanted to go to a bar, but she realized she was in the middle of fucking nowhere and anyway all the bars in her parts closed at 8 p.m.

IJAG tilted her head back. “I WISH I’D NEVER BECOME A SPORTS WRITER!” she yelled into the empty night.

Suddenly someone appeared next to her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

“Shit, am I fired?” IJAG said.

“No, I’m not your boss.”

“Well then mind your fucking business. And what are you doing in the middle of nowhere, anyway?”

“Ghosts exist everywhere, dear.”

“A ghost?” IJAG said. “Those are like global warming: Myths. Non-existent.”

“Not me,” the ghost said. “I’m the ghost of message boards past, and I’m here to show you what your life would have been like if you hadn’t become a sportswriter.”

With that, the ghost and IJAG were at a bookstore where a man in a pinstriped suit was delivering a speech in front of an attentive audience.

“Who’s that?” IJAG said.

“That’s Simon_Cowbell.”

“Really? What’s he doing, besides making bets with BYH and ranting about baseball’s lack of competitive balance?”

“Actually he’s not doing that. He’s a billionaire publisher of books called ‘Inarguable Among The Sane.’ They’re the ‘For Dummies’ books of the 21st century. He wrote the first one called ‘Baseball’s Financial System Is The Best In Sports.’ Subtitle is ‘And Anyone Who Thinks Otherwise Is A Fucking Douchebag Asshole Lemming.’”

IJAG shrugged. “OK, so he’s making a nice living and loves baseball. So what? How’s that change anything?”

“Well, wait 'til you see this.”

With that, the ghost and IJAG were inside a circus tent. Their gaze quickly settled on two people having sex.

“What the hell is this?” IJAG asked.

“That’s your friend BYH.”

“Wow! We walked in on BYH having sex? Talk about good timing!”

“Not at all,” the ghost said. “It’s no challenge at all to see that. He’s in the circus because of his superhuman abilities in bed. He’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest love-making session ever: Twenty-seven hours before orgasm. He said he finally had one because he felt bad for his wife. Tantric sex has been renamed BYH sex.”

“That’s just fucking impossible,” IJAG said. “He’s…he’s BYH. His lack of stamina was the first board joke ever run into the ground and killed!”

“He’s not the only person having copious amounts of sex now that you never became a sportswriter. Check this out.”

The ghost and IJAG were in a smoky bar where Green Day songs were being played at ear-splitting levels. “Look at that guy,” the ghost yelled in IJAG’s ear, pointing to a guy with perfectly coiffed hair and a striped shirt. The guy whispered in the ear of the girl next to him. Almost immediately, she stripped down to her bra and panties and put her hand down his pants.

“That’s mike311gd,” the ghost said.

“Get the fuck out of here!” IJAG said. “That’s even less plausible than BYH satisfying a woman. Mikey’s lack of a sex life was the OTHER joke that the rest of SJ destroyed.”

“Yes, but again, without you becoming a sportswriter, there was never a SportsJournalists.com, so Mikey had no place to display his limitless knowledge of schlocky ‘80s and ‘90s sitcoms. So he had the time to come up with a fail-proof plan to get laid, all day every day: Dress up like his favorite characters and hump them in character. Right now he’s having sex as Zack Morris.”

With that, Mike and the girl stumbled out of a bathroom. Mike donned a black wig and pulled a pair of drumsticks out of his back pocket.

“Now he’s going to try to pick a girl up as Uncle Jesse,” the ghost said.

IJAG shook her head. “I can’t handle much more of this,” she said. “Everything I thought was true has been turned upside down.”

“Oh then you’re not going to like this.”

With that, the ghost and IJAG were standing outside a restaurant shaped like a ketchup bottle. “Welcome to your friend Pallister’s chain of burger joints,” the ghost said. “Shall we step inside?”

“But Pallister hates ketchup!”

“Bet you thought he hated the number 13 too, didn’t you?”

The ghost and IJAG stepped into the building as Pallister spoke. “It’s a great pleasure to be here today opening another restaurant,” Pallister said. “With 13 restaurants in Rhode Island, I have realized my lifelong goal: Thirteen restaurants in the 13th state. We won’t expand, we’ll just kick all sorts of ass here. Also, make sure to put lots of ketchup on your burgers.”

The crowd applauded. “Now with that in mind, please enjoy our around-the-clock viewings of the movie Thirteen,” Pallister said. “I have to fly home to Chicago. My beloved Cubs are playing at 7 p.m. and I want to root them on from my rooftop apartment. Also, eat lots of ketchup.”

IJAG vomited. “Oh God,” she said. “Pallister’s a Cubs fan who embraces thirteen and flies around the country. I can’t take this anymore.”

“That speech isn’t even the worst thing you’ll see today. I wonder if this will be?”

“That’s a terrible way to end a sentence.”

“Shut the fuck up and look at those three people.”

-MORE-

 

On a stage were two women and a man. As the crowd applauded, the trio began making out.

“Who are those freaks?” IJAG asked.

“Flash, Lugnuts and Piotr Rasputin.”

“What the ever-holy fuck?!”

“Yup. They met on Facebook, had a threesome and enjoyed it so much they tour offices nationwide talking about the importance of Facebook in business and interpersonal relationships.”

“That’s horrible! This is just hideous!”

“So is this.”

With that, the ghost and IJAG were standing outside a Pizza Hut/Taco Bell. The door opened and a harried-looking man walked out with his arms filled with food.

“Who’s that hungry bastard?” IJAG asked.

“That’s Boom_70, and he’s not hungry,” the ghost said as Boom approached a limousine. “He’s getting that food for his boss.”

“Who the hell could eat all that food?” IJAG said.

Boom opened the door. A booming (LAY OFF ME IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!) voice yelled “JOHN! LYNCHIE! IT’S P.K. BUDDY!”

“Boom is Peter King’s limousine driver,” the ghost said as the food disappeared and Boom walked back into the restaurant to get more. “He’s having a bad day, but it’s about to get a lot worse.”

“Why is that?”

“‘Lynchie’ told him there’s a Little League game going on around the block. There are foul balls for Boom to steal for PK.”

IJAG began to cry. “I’m sorry…I can’t take this anymore,” she said. “I’m sorry I ever lashed out.”

The ghost and IJAG were at the University of Tennessee and a Lane Kiffin press conference. “Mmmm, Lane Kiffin. I’d do all sorts of holy unmentionables to him,” IJAG said.

“Well, we’re not here for you to masturbate.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Uh-huh. Anyway, UT’s off to an 0-7 start in his first year and there’s a local reporter just hammering him…your old friend slappy4428. Listen in.”

“Do you ever regret hiring your dad?” Slappy said.

“Never,” Kiffin said.

“But you guys have given up 35 or more points in every game. Wouldn’t you have fired the defensive coordinator by now if you weren’t related to him?”

“Never,” Kiffin said. “I’m a patient man. We’re all in this together. The buck stops with me. I’m accountable. You want to criticize someone, criticize me. Don’t criticize my dad.”

“Do you ever wish your mom fucked a better defensive coordinator?” Slappy said.

Kiffin glared at him as Slappy was escorted from the room.

“Make it stop!” IJAG cried. “Please!”

Yet there was so much more to see: 21, the author of a book titled “If I Did It,” a so-called fictional account of burying a Jewish mother alive…Spnited, writing a fantasy sports column titled “I Care About Your Fantasy Team”… Cadet, a right-wing talk show host whose program is called “A Woman’s Place Is In The Kitchen”… Sportschick, picketing rodeo shows because she finds the exploitation of men on bulls disgusting…Armchair_QB, following the Cincinnati Reds around the country and throwing his shoes at Dusty Baker…Zeke12, dedicating his body to tattoos of A.J. Pierzynski and Don Henley…Oz, parlaying his NIAFL championship into a general manager’s job with the Detroit Lions, whom he immediately led to another 0-16 season after he traded Calvin Johnson to the Steelers for a pile of sweat socks…JR, a Svengali music producer with a mullet who turned an opera singer into a pop country icon and married her…HC, that opera singer-turned-pop country icon…Forever_Town, touring the country and singing in a Stevie Nicks tribute band that performs in the same city nightly as Fleetwood Mac…Old_Tony, the author of an “Indisputable Among The Sane” book called “Explaining Global Warming To Republicans”… Moderator1, a Yankees season-ticket holder…The Big Ragu, reading “Vocab For Dummies”… Mizzougrad96, posting on corporatedude.com and raving about the fuckin’ studs from the best business schools in the land…Starman, a weasel publisher who runs a seminar titled “Do More With Less By Writing Stories And Selling Ads The Right Way”… Ace, living under a bridge in downtown Cleveland after he lost his job delivering the Plain Dealer…Bubbler, managing a McDonalds…Dooley_Womack1, running the official website for Meredith Brooks (number of hits since 1997: three)… Hank Scorpio, the inventor of “Loins for Lions,” the popular and X-rated giveaway at Ford Field…Tom Petty, singing Ashford & Simpson’s “Solid” in his jail cell as he does 5-10 years for stalking Jennifer Love Hewitt…The Sports Predictor and 2muchcoffeeman, walking around and reminding people when they’re having a conversation that’s already taken place somewhere else in the town…Poindexter, the author of “What I Learned From Fucking My High School Economics Teacher,” a book that foretold the collapse of America’s financial system…Fenian_Bastard, writing year-in-review pieces for National Review—for free…Jones, penning year-in-preview pieces for his editor Chris_L…Buckweaver, running a website called OldTimeBaseballBlows.org…Pete Incaviglia, posting on message boards as Oddibe McDowell…Trey Beamon, posting on message boards as Bryan Bullington…Inky Wretch, BLOGGING!!!! about the Cleveland Browns…Lee Jackson Beauregard, the author of the worst-selling book of all-time: “The Greatest Super Bowl Ever—Steelers vs. Seahawks”…Angola!, doing five years for attacking Edgar Martinez with a bat…Tommy Dreamer, happily employed as a greeter at Circuit City in Pittsburgh…Chef, the world’s first quadruple-amputee surgeon…Cosmo, the architect of a Kurt Warner tribute site called queef.com…Sam Mills 51, running a website trying to bring the Carolina Hurricanes back to Hartford…Double Down, a TMZ cameraman assigned exclusively to Paris Hilton…Flying Headbutt, moderator of the Art Modell Is Awesome message board, where his biggest pain in the ass is a guy named BitterleroYHoard…KYSportsWriter, running a Duke BLOG!!!!...Ben_Hecht, running a website called ThirdTermForBush.com…Junkie, [this post has been deleted by the poster]…Dickens Cider, living under a different name but still bragging to anyone who will listen about how he has a Hall of Fame vote in every sport and reminding everyone he passes on the street to stay on topic…Hockeybeat, still leading tours of New York City during the holiday season…Shotglass, still throwing cats at passerby…and, of course, Huggy, still singing “Love Touch” in dive bars around Canada and trying to sell his 2,800-page book on Rod Stewart’s mid-80s output.

“Thanks for showing me the error of my ways,” IJAG said as she prepared to go back into the office. “Some of the posters are better off, some are not, but the way it is now makes for a message board I can’t stay away from, no matter how goddamn hard I try.”

“Glad to have helped,” the ghost said. He looked at his watch. “Well, I gotta go. CC Sabathia’s having second thoughts about signing with the Yankees and I gotta go show him what lie would have been like if he’d never been drafted by the Indians.”

“He’s said he doesn’t mind the periods in his name now, you know.”

“Shut the fuck up and drink a Dr Pepper, bitch.”

 

Fantastic stuff.

 

fannnn-fucking-tastic, BYH!

 

Lotta work.

Kudos.

 

not bad. mispelled life in the last sabathia graf.

but not bad.

 

Brilliant as always!

I'd love to see JR with a mullet!

 

priceless

“He’s not the only person having copious amounts of sex now that you never became a sportswriter. Check this out.”

The ghost and IJAG were in a smoky bar where Green Day songs were being played at ear-splitting levels. “Look at that guy,” the ghost yelled in IJAG’s ear, pointing to a guy with perfectly coiffed hair and a striped shirt. The guy whispered in the ear of the girl next to him. Almost immediately, she stripped down to her bra and panties and put her hand down his pants.

“That’s mike311gd,” the ghost said.

“Get the fuck out of here!” IJAG said. “That’s even less plausible than BYH satisfying a woman. Mikey’s lack of a sex life was the OTHER joke that the rest of SJ destroyed.”

“Yes, but again, without you becoming a sportswriter, there was never a SportsJournalists.com, so Mikey had no place to display his limitless knowledge of schlocky ‘80s and ‘90s sitcoms. So he had the time to come up with a fail-proof plan to get laid, all day every day: Dress up like his favorite characters and hump them in character. Right now he’s having sex as Zack Morris.”

 

Babe, only you could make yesterday's sentence at O'Hare seem worth it. I laughed so hard reading certain parts ("Shit, am I fired?" and the whole Pallister part) my mom just made me read them to her. Sadly, she doesn't know you loosers so it wasn't that funny to her.

Anyway, thank you. And oddly, the part that jumped out at me in the Dr Pepper reference was the "Guns-N-Roses" even before the Dr Pepper.




I love most of you freaks in one way or another. BYH I love in every non-biblical sense.

 

I think the fact that Junkie's alternate reality was self redacted was my favorite part.

 

God bless us everyone....

 

As always, the SJ highlight of the year. Brilliant work!