Curses, foiled again - but it's not my fault!
By Beth Teitell
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Are the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs cursed? Or the luckiest teams in baseball? Or both?
After all, who among us wouldn't love to have an all-purpose, handy-dandy, world-famous curse to blame when we mess up?
Sorry, boss, I'd love to limit the time I spend on the Internet making vacation plans and e-mailing friends, and turn in my reports on time, and make fewer long-distance personal calls, and not take home office supplies, and be a team player, and stop spreading harmful rumors, and give the job my all, but I just can't. I'm cursed.
Except for the Sox and the Cubs - who labor under the Billy Goat Curse - every other team in Major League Baseball is considered responsible for their win-loss record.
But by this point in the season, even generally reputable media outlets are no longer holding the two teams accountable for their performances: ``Cubs or Red Sox'' a recent headline on Slate.com read, ``Who Will God Smite This Time?''
``I'd love to have a curse of my own,'' a friend said as she climbed the StairMaster next to mine. ``Actually, I think I do. The curse of the burrito. It's not that I'm a yo-yo dieter, it's that I'm cursed.
``The more I think about it, the more I want a curse,'' she added. She's sometimes late to pick up her daughter at day care, and her provider charges $1 a minute.
``When I'm having heart palpitations on Route 128, trying to do breathing exercises, it would be comforting to know it wasn't my fault,'' she said.
``A curse is a much more authentic excuse than traffic. It would let me play the victim card.''
I mentioned the appeal of the curse to a woman who considers herself clinically housekeeping challenged. Aware that she's been unable to get a doctor's note getting her out of her obligations, I mentioned she might try for a curse.
She brightened. ``Yes, it's not that I'm too lazy to vacuum, or fold the clothes before they get too wrinkled in the laundry basket, it's that I'm cursed.''
The curse also could be used as a legal tactic, right up there with the Twinkie Defense. ``Members of the jury, as you can plainly see, my client, Martha Stewart, didn't want to engage in securities fraud or obstruct justice or make false statements - she's suffering under the Curse of the Kathie Lee, which strikes people who make obscene amounts of money selling their clothing or home lines at Wal-Mart.''
But back to the Red Sox and their curse. Everyone - from CNN to The New York Times to HBO - seems to accept the fact that our curse is that of the Bambino. But I think he may have laid off. After watching J. Lo and Ben Affleck looking happy together at Game 4, I realized we're suffering under a far worse curse, the dreaded Curse of the Bennifer.
