The Phrase of the Year Award

It's been quite a year of phrases new and well-worn.  So which of these fucking annoying and misplaced phrases wins the award for 2020?  Let's find out!

2nd Runner Up: "The New Normal"

By using this phrase, the person speaking is accepting the abnormal as what will be commonplace.  Where this was wildly misused was when, after asking someone politely to wear a mask to prevent the spread of a virus would then be extended to, say, charging you through the nose for a product.  Or giving you twice the amount of work because you're lucky to be working at all, you know?  You can apply a phrase such as this afterwards, as if to say "I used to do _____, but now I do _____.  I never do that old ______ anymore....______ is my new normal."  But that doesn't apply to being treated like dung on purpose just because...hey!  This is Your new normal.

1st Runner Up: "It is what it is."

Look, the morgue is full.  The park is closed.  Occurrences minor, annoying, major, life-threatening.  Could they have been prevented?  Most likely.  But they weren't.  They're dead, the house is burned, the store is closed forever and...it is what it is.  A favorite phrase of people who love to talk but say little to nothing of value, this one rocketed up near the top...but it isn't #1.  

The 2020 phrase of the Year: "Can't you just..."

Your life, in whatever way you manage it, or view it, or just plain live it, is completely different.  As such, some rather large difficulties have sprung up.  You're only human to wonder aloud how to deal with these difficulties, but deal with them you do and life marches on (if you're lucky).  And there, from the sidelines, comes confusion from people who are utterly baffled a majority of their life.  Their lack of general knowledge and seeming avoidance of all manners of formal education shine through.  They don't understand.  To explain why you "can't just" would not only require a lengthy explanation, it would also require the person who asked you that same question to understand simple, basic logic.  Could they fully step into your shoes and view the situation as you?  Or anyone else?  Of course not.  As such, the confusion continues.  And it used to just be those random moments in public where their lost, glazed face would cross your path and you'd just shake your head and exhale.  Now those same people, daffier than ever, are oh so confused almost 100% of the time.  Do you have time to explain life/society/how the can opener works?  

It's easy to ask "what is your resolution for '21?" but why is it (I fear) it will just be more so in the coming year?  When is the escape?  Individually, how will we define it?  What will it look like?  And can you blame anyone if they never return? 

It's the system we currently have and...

 Before I begin, I note that I am writing this because I am a big college football fan.  I'm probably a bigger college basketball fan, but I watch more college football these days (just the way it goes with life obligations) but know that combination as you read.

As I watched Saturday and then sat thinking Saturday night, I knew the inevitable.  The good, the fun schools, the ones who made the season interesting and as such would make an invitational er... playoff interesting, wouldn't get close to being included.  It was the same old, same old.

And I thought about what bowl games I could remember, and for each that were big time schools and games, the rest were the upsets and weirdo games.  Of course I'll never forget the Rose Bowl I attended with Oklahoma and Georgia going toe to toe in a game that seemingly never ended and we didn't want it to and I found myself hugging complete strangers in euphoria.  But, for some reason, I remember VERY old Independence Bowls, and I don't know why.  I won't even bore you with the details.

These kind of reaching thoughts first started in late March of 2020.  I felt selfish, but I thought back to many, many March's and their madness.  Some nuttier than others, some unique, a few depressing, but a large amount of memories.  Nearly all of those memories were not that North Carolina won their 2nd round game by 30.  It was because they lost to Weber State in the first round.  

Both of those events, a destruction and an upset loss, were because "the powers that be" long ago said even if you're great, or a "big school," you're going to have to play these games.  You're going to have to travel (not always, I'm looking at you Duke) and you'll play Missouri State or Detroit or Belmont or Santa Clara, and you'll just have to go right then and there.  Hell, DePaul, in its glory years, received byes (back when those were a thing) and then would lose their 1st game so often they said "we don't want to have a bye, we want to play in the first round, too) and so it was.

So bring it back to college football.  And all I hear from the windbags or those brainwashed by either ESPN or a spray-tanned pile of chicken fat say "DURRR THEY'D GET SMOKED BY (insert school here)."  I could list the many March Madness upsets (even when the NCAA is slowly trending to include fewer of those schools) and their automatic response is that it's "not the same."  Because the sport isn't the same, not what we're talking about (upsets, all schools getting a fair shake) because...well, we're already losing brain cells.  

North Carolina "would smoke that school" until they didn't.  They lost.  I'm not saying Alabama should play Kansas State this year.  I'm saying I'd like them to play an undefeated Cincy...or Coastal Carolina...shit, I've love to see em play Army, just to fuck them up when they go on a 15 play, 42 yard drive that takes 13 minutes.  Or an undefeated San Jose State, where Nick goes "Wait, why does our quarterback have to throw while running backwards?"  And maybe they'd win.  And they'd likely win.  And SJSU would say "we gave em everything we had."  Or maybe it'd go the other way around, and we'd be talking about it forever.

I always mean to watch reruns when I can't think of what to watch.  I should watch "Turkey's Away" from WKRP in Cincinnati around Thanksgiving.  Some years I do, some I don't.  And when I don't, I know I can go through the high points in my mind, smile and shake my head.  Well, college football, I've seen this shit over and over again.  You don't want to show me another episode...or anything new.  If the callous response, correctly or misplaced, is "It's all about money" then let's see a fandom, some of whom are upset, vote with their TVs/Computers/Phones and just not watch.  When a double digit decline in viewership is reported, "they" won't be ready for a response.  But if it's the same old, same old, well...that's what will continue to happen.  And, also selfishly, something I enjoy will be taken away from me, and all that's left are those same memories.