We’ve lost our bearing with no sports to lock on to

Well, let me be the first to wish you a cheery good Wednesday morning.

I guess.

No, wait. The “good morning” part stands, no questions asked.

I meant every word of it. Good morning-good morning-good morning.

I’m just a wild and friendly guy wishing you well.

Heartfelt, as it were.

It’s the “Wednesday” part of the deal — Hump Day in some circles — that I’m struggling with here, even having to double-check my notes and calling in all the fact checkers.

See, I only suppose it’s Wednesday.

That would be my best guesstimate at least.

But whotheheck really knows anymore?

And does it really matter anyway?

Dang it, I want Wednesday to feel like by-gosh Wednesday again. Thursday, too. All of them days. And especially the weekend days, Saturday and Sunday, if I recall correctly.

But now they’re just generic 24-hour periods, no brand names, really.  It’s  just  one nameless, soulless day after another moving through your self-distancing and semi-self-quarantined life while you remember to practice safe TP-hoarding.

Could it have been just a few short  weeks ago that we all thought our world was turned upside down because dastardly old Daylight Savings Time had sneaked in again, caught us totally offguard for the 55th consecutive year. So the sun came up late (or early, frankly I forget) and went down too early (whichever).  

Spring forward, leap back, doesn’t matter, we’re all going to miss work and be late for Happy  Hour.

In retrospect, those were the good old days, the painful, confusing week or so it took us to find the DVR instructions and change its clock, or at least make it quit blinking.

That was all about one measly hour and it disrupted things as surely as the (mere outside chance of) snow in Louisiana.

One hour. Total chaos.

Now, we, as a society, don’t even know what dadgum day it is?

Think about it.

If I hadn’t given away the plot early, would you really know it’s Wednesday right now.

Best I can tell it has something to do with, or at least is similar to, or maybe the 2020 version of … your … wait for it … circadian rhythm.

Fortunately for you, I have Google-researched this rascal for you.

It sounds like something involving crickets, but none of the search results mention anything  about … oh, wait. They ­do — and by “they” we’re talking about people way smarter and far more bored than us — for some reason study the circadian rhythm of crickets, although the language was far too technical for me to figure out why.

But these circadian rhythm critters  can (and might always; I didn’t read that far) also be found in the human brain, mostly running in the background … but always ready to pounce.

They make you have less energy between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., (nothing good happens after 2 a.m., except at college). But they also typically strike in mid-afternoon, giving you a sudden urge to take a (well-deserved) nap at work.

They are controlled by your boss, who knows, among other things, when you’re really working and when you’re just goofing around on Facebook.

Actually, I don’t know that to be true. But it could be, so get off Facebook now.

Anyway, my theory, soon to be appearing in a medical-type journal near you, is that the current lack of live sports in our nation has expanded the circadian rhythm’s reach into the entire week.

Worse, it has short-circuited the whole process.

It’s an eery Twilight Zone.

We don’t even know what day of the week it is!

We have lost our bearings. The natural order of things has been derailed.

It’s like that strange week between Christmas and New Years when you’re never sure what day it is  ­— but without any bowl games.

 My theory is that our brain knows what sports season it is — don’t ask, it just knows —  and it has grown to know the natural progression of it and keep you on kilter.

That’s what was really running around in the back of your brain. But it’s all out of whack now.

So how in darnation are you supposed to know it’s Wednesday if there was no midweek college baseball game last night and no need to remind yourself to double check if there was another tonight.

You’d know that tomorrow — Thursday or somesuch —  there would be a PGA golf tournament teeing off and that’d be the first thing you thought about when you woke up.

And you’d be following the NCAA tournament and know you’re a day away from a good, solid Thursday because that’s the first night of the Sweet 16.

Now. It might as well be any day when you get up. Shoot, they’re all alike. What’s it matter which one?

The networks tried to fool you last week with NCAA tournament games.

And then you realized.

I’m watching a game from 1984 — my life is a time warp.

And Michael Jordan is like 13 years old.

It won’t get any better, I’m afraid.

Along about this time, the natural  flow would be leading you to the Final Four, then the opening of the Major Leagues, followed late in the week by The Masters.

Instead it’s …

Crickets.


SCOOTER HOBBS covers LSU athletics. Contact him at shobbs@americanpress.com

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