And it Begins

Today marks the official beginning of the annual ritual known as The Week of the Persistent Question.What's the question, you ask? (glad you asked).

It is any variation of: "How's your bracket?" or "How you doin' in the brackets?" or "My bracket sucks, how's yours?"

This takes first place by a slim margin over The Week of the Persistent Statement.

"I'm kicking ass in my bracket pool." or "[Insert name of overrated team] killed my bracket." or "I'm out of my pool."
It's one of those times where a we hear a single word so much that it wears at us. Bracket Pool, Bracket-buster, Bracketology, bracket - bracket - bracket. It's quite a racket, this bracket - in more ways than one.

A big TV event and the illusive lure of gambling make for a great Pool-related sporting event. Like the Super Bowl, it finds fancy with people who would otherwise not give a crap but for the availability of gambling. Betting on something in which you have no interest or knowledge is apparently fun in our culture. Who'd-a-thunk it?
Nobody wants to be left out, and if your harebrained selection winds up winning, you don't want to be one of the people who wishes they had filled out a bracket. But which type of pool to choose? If you are among more sophisticated types, the choices are far-reaching.

If we put half the energy into solving real problems that we put into devising new and different bracket pools, the world would be a better place.

Sweet 16 Pool

Pick 8 Pool

Confidence 16 Pool

Survivor Pool

Seed 8 pool

Big blind-draw pool

Spread pools

Square Pool

I heard a radio host try to explain a complicated bidding pool he was in, and how it worked. I almost drove off the road. You pick a team, and if they win and beat the spread, you apply that point total to the spread of the next game. If they lose, the points go toward the winning team, and you can bid on them ... Cancer research is less complicated.

At the office, everybody donates ten dollars, and the winner is the person who correctly identified the fiercest bird mascot, picks their home state or determined that blue beats green and red beats yellow.

As for me, I'm out of my pool, and I refuse to annoy people with stories of the odds-against winners and how a match-up ruined my chances.

I'm going to say that I didn't fill one out, when in fact, I filled out three. It's a lie we can all live with.