Who coined the phrase, “The truth shall set you free”?  The answer is irrelevant, because I will write something relevant just to set people free.  Or, as I will gracefully write, just get them out of the closet.

The Apple Cup is a game played each year between two football teams, The Washington Huskies and The Washington State Cougars.  I had to explain this because the game has fallen on hard times, and people have to look it up in an Encyclopedia Britannica to remember what it was.  Or, they can just Google it.  Today, it will be played in Pullman, Washington.  Huh?  Where?  Why?  What?  Let me explain the pain.

My wife and I graduated from Washington State University.  (after a long pause, I must muster up an idea of why we are proud of this………………….)  Well, we are proud of our degrees, but not proud of Washington State athletics.  And, we do feel, unlike Patrick Swayze, pain hurts, but memories and lies make you suffer.  Yet, we still watch the game each year around a time when we are supposed to be thankful.  I wasn’t always thankful on this day, but I have learned to tell the truth about this day, and about many others, not participating in the game on the field.  It had nothing to do with the players battling on that gridiron carpet, but it was and is more about the fans.  F you Husky fans, and F you Cougar fans.  Ninety percent of you coug and dawg fans are just jerks and a-holes when it comes to a game I used to respect.  Outside of the game, I really enjoy the company of anyone who attended the University of Washington or graduated from Washington State University.  Unless they are with their fraternity brothers who protect one another like a pack of cougs or dogs, alone, they become pretty nice chaps.  Now, here’s the truth.

I was surrounded by lying Dawgs for many years.  They always tried to comfort me, since I was just a lowly cat. The Dawg Fathers, abjectly lying, would subject me to statements such as this, “oh, we root for your team……just not when they are playing the Huskies”.  BULL…… SHIT!   I am setting myself free by common admission where, as a Cougar, I drove a great distance to watch the Huskies twice, in two Rose Bowls played in Pasadena, Ca.  I acted like I was rooting for them.  BULL SHIT!  I was rooting for Michigan all the way, and it was difficult, because I loved and respected the Husky team, but I hated their fans.  Therefore, secretly, I rooted against them.  Guilty as charged.

Now, let’s really get to the gut ugly point I wish to establish and then forget about for the next eleven months.  Patronizing.  Definition: (giving you this definitions IS the definition of patronizing, but it’s kind of funny) Treat with apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority…..or (this even worse) to be kind or helpful to, but in a haughty or snobbish way.  “Help me, I’m poor”.  I stole that line from a movie.  It was pertaining to seating in first class against the coach.

Cougs: Coach (sucks) Huskies (used to fly first class, but now they are only interested in beating up their younger brother, the cougs.  That’s even more embarrassing than playing for or coaching for Washington State.  It feels like the Huskies just wander around looking for someone to beat up, laugh about it and then say, quite flippantly, “oh, we’ll root for you next week”.  This is where, years ago, I did an investigative report concerning this issue of flagrant and egregious foul mouthed phonies.  The Husky Fans.  I will soon rest my case.

Traveling to Seattle, Washington, notebook in hand, I didn’t really care if the Huskies won or lost.  I just wished to dispel the myth that a drunken Husky would actually root for, or even cared about the Washington State Cougars.  On that day, the Cougars were playing a meaningless game against Oregon State.  The Huskies, out of bowl contention, were playing another meaningless game against Cal.  Patiently, and sopping with rain, I waited for the truth to arrive.  It did.

At halftime, people waited for scores on the highlighted scoreboard at the beautiful Husky Stadium. (It truly was beautiful, overlooking some lake filled with other common liars in pretentious boats, acting as though they cared about the game)  This was my gambling tell.  The tell is when you can tell if somebody is lying in Vegas or in a stadium  littered with liars.  Easy.  I used to gamble, so I know all about liars……including me.

I didn’t even look at the scoreboard.  Rather, I looked at the reactions of those faithful Huskies reacting to the score of a meaningless game, two hundred and eighty five miles away in Pullman, Washington.  Cougs, 13, Oregon State, 27.  The stadium erupted with cheers of delight and laughter.  I only celebrated the FACT that the Huskies don’t root for the Cougars.  It solidified my theory.  My ex-mother in-law, claiming to be a Husky, said, “whoops”, when I laughed and exposed her for the Husky fraud she was.

As mean as that may sound, all of the people and fans I refer to are genuinely good people.  I am merely pointing out the fact that lying about this silly and irrelevant game should make you an honest person………at some point.

(This must end abruptly because a few very special people are on the way to our house…that means I need to vacuum and break out the leftover turkey.)

To all you Husky fans, I’ll drop these turkey drippings on your souls.  It’s ok to win, but in the long run, it’s not ok to lie……….unless you say the most profound of statements containing a grand slam of four phony words……..”Wait until next year”.

I just wait until Thanksgiving.  A good turkey sandwich always makes me honestly forget.