It's Not Kidney Disease, It's the Lions

There is a small part of me that knows I'm sick, but generally I feel so good and have adapted so well to dialysis (knock on wood) that I rarely tend to think about it. God is good, all the time. However, it's a comforting feeling to know that should I ever really fall ill in public, there are still caring people in the world that might rush to my aid.

Sunday afternoon Karen and I were shopping at the Nordstrom store in the giant Woodfield Mall outside Chicago. (Ah, Nordstrom: Like so many things in life, I didn't realize how much I appreciated it until it was gone, after I moved to a city that didn't have one.) I was browsing through the men's department while watching pro football updates through the NFL Red Zone app on my Droid cell phone.

(Now let me interject right here that, after years of insisting my cell phone needn't do anything more exotic than send and receive calls, I was given a Droid recently by my wonderful wife when she upgraded to a new model. (Growing up as an only child, this may have been my first hand-me-down ever.) How could I have been so wrong? I am proud to declare that I am a Luddite no longer. This Droid is the best invention since peanut butter cups. With the Red Zone app I can watch NFL game action in real time on my telephone. I feel like Dick Tracy with a two-way wrist radio. My mother, if she were still alive, might faint dead away over these technological marvels we now take for granted.)

While looking over white Oxford shirts – no wardrobe can ever have enough – I was monitoring the Detroit Lions game at home against the powerful New York Jets. I am a foolhardy Detroit sports fanatic, as you may know. And though every Lions fan knows better than to invest too much passion or emotion in the outcome of their games, the team has been playing better of late. They held a 10-point lead over the Jets with mere minutes to play.

I kept shopping and checking the score, back and forth. Nice price on these chinos. The Jets have tied the score! Do you have this shirt in extra jumbo? They're going into overtime! Oh, the Nordstrom shoe department is so wonderful! And the Jets storm back to win the game on a field goal in OT!

I was momentarily crestfallen. Dagnab it, those Lions did it to me again! I emitted an audible groan and slumped against a rack of sale slacks.

In the blink of an eye, a dark-haired young saleswoman was at my side. (It was Nordstrom, after all.)

"Sir, are you all right?" she asked, breathless.

"No, I'm not," I replied.

"Should we get you somebody?"

"Yes. Maybe a better defensive backfield."

"What?"

"My team just lost in overtime."

A nervous laugh leaped from her lips, a combination of relief and confusion. Then her eyes narrowed, and a shot of anger flashed.

"You mean this is all because your football team lost a game?" she asked.

I straightened up and looked at her with calm resignation.

"Obviously, miss," I said, "you have never been a sports fan."

Go Lions.