When Dreams Come Crashing Down...

So it’s not every day that I (Chase) get to write on the blog. Usually, Steph needs the break from the monotony of her study days at home (and after spending all of one day at home last week while I was sick, I now see why), and frankly, due to the limits of confidentiality, there are typically precious few details about my day that I can safely reveal.

However, I’m hijacking the blog this week, because it’s about sports. No, not the Huskers. In fact, since I was sick on Thursday, I elected to work on Saturday to make up some of the hours, hence skipping the Husker game and feeling supremely confident in our ability to handle mighty Iowa St. Having seen not a clip nor read not a word about the game, I’ve decided to convince myself that the game, in fact, never happened at all. I’ve avoided my normal sports outlets for the past 24 hours and will continue to do so until I’m certain no highlights of that game remain. It simply didn’t happen in my world. There was no college football last Saturday—all opponents called a truce and took the weekend off. I truly believe this now.

This blog, rather, is about our recent interactions with ESPN the Magazine. Last month’s issue was dubbed “The Body Issue,” and it chronicled, at times in rather…startling visual detail, the bodies of some of the world’s greatest athletes, both male and female alike. In reality, it was an excuse for photographers to get a bunch of athletes naked and take pictures. Now my wife was home the day this issue arrived, and when she got the mail and saw the cover, found it prudent to scan the rest of the magazine. Upon discovering countless other females in the buff, she took it upon herself to play seamstress and fashion Post-It Note leotards and various other articles of clothing for the women who didn’t have the decency to do it for themselves. This was the new cover:

...And some of the more notable spreads that required editing...

When I got home, she showed me her handiwork, which, although impressed, I couldn’t help but wonder aloud why she didn’t just throw it away. After spending better than an hour cutting out designer paper clothing and another half an hour to compose a scathing email to ESPN, that offhand remark earned me “the look.” Rightfully so.

So yesterday I get home from work and the following issue of ESPN the Magazine is waiting for me (the NBA Preview Issue—always a favorite). I began flipping through it and remembered that they always have a page dedicated to the feedback, both good and bad, from the last issue. Thinking Steph just might have made her point with the appropriate level of tact and grace (or something opposite to that), I turned to page 20.

Low and behold, comment #2 belongs to none other than my very own, name misspelled, “Stefani Francl, Vienna, VA.” Yes, after years of dreaming about being a sports columnist, sending in comments and witticisms to different writers, and writing numerous disgruntled complaints of my own about how my beloved Huskers wrongfully get their games blacked out while I’m forced to watch lesser teams play meaningless games, my wife sends in one lousy letter and, of course, it gets published immediately.

**sigh**

Yeah, you better believe that one earned her “the look.”