When Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Alex loves all things sports. As whacked out as he is in this very specialized domain of human pursuit, his love for NFL football dwarfs all other passions. It makes his love of basketball, which is almost unsurpassed, seem passive by comparison. When he left on his year long sojourn around the globe, his abiding concern was how he would get to watch football games from the other side of the planet. He got edgy when asked about it. And, here we are at the onset of the 2009 NFL schedule and Alex finds himself in Perth, Australia -- perhaps better known for its kangaroo steaks than its opinions on how to run the wildcat offense. Alex’s feverish pursuit of football mania included his recent all-nighter when he participated in not one, but two, fantasy league drafts that were actually taking place in far more civilized timeframes in the western hemisphere.

Opening day: Sunday, September 13. Alex is so pumped because he has discovered a website that will enable him to watch any and all NFL games online, and in hi-def to boot. The fact that, for him, these contests will take place in the dark of Perth nights when most normal Aussies are sound asleep is irrelevant. Alex has taken long naps during the day to prepare himself for his night-long, pass-happy vigil.

And then, disaster strikes: the website crashes leaving him -- in a football sense -- deaf, blind and mute. He stalks the streets of Perth, a pilgrim in search of answers and none are forthcoming. In a desperate "fourth and long" attempt to salvage a fighting chance to watch his beloved Washington Redskins, he reaches me on Skype knowing that in Charleston the Skins game is being televised locally. He asks whether he can watch the game with me by me arranging my laptop in front of the TV so he can watch on his computer screen Down Under. I oblige. I wrangle a crude platform about two feet in front of my very large TV, turn up the volume, adjust the laptop so it is taking in the full TV picture, and sit down “with” Alex to watch the game.

It is an odd experience. I am in Charleston; Alex is in the lobby of a sketchy hostel in Perth about as far away as one human can be from another and still inhabit the same planet. And yet, we are reacting to the same event -- which is taking place in New York -- as if we are in the same room. Which we are, sort of. Alex yells and so do I. We react to the same incident on the field and confer although when I catch myself I realize I am speaking to some disembodied voice coming out of a small computer sitting oddly in the middle of my living room.

We stick with this arrangement until the end of the first quarter when his sorely missed NFL website comes back online. I say good-bye to the voice coming from the computer, and put my laptop back on the dining room table from whence it came.

I confess for the rest of the game, when I hurled some epithet at the screen I would sometimes look over to the dormant laptop looking for a reaction.