Jolt Country

I wake up on Monday and fire off an e-mail to a columnist on ESPN.com. I never do this. I look at this place as filled with little baby penguins and the content I keep in my thorax can feed many of you. I'm not in the process of giving up that shit to just anyone who walks by.

I wrote a joke, which is rare for me. It went like this:

Q: Why was Nick Harper unable to change directions and get past Big Ben at the end of the game on Sunday?

A: Because Mrs. Harper is responsible for all the good cuts in that family.

If you are unfamiliar with football, a "cut" is when you change directions quickly. If you are unfamiliar with miss-your-period-crazy, knife-wielding football wives, a "cut" is when you sociopathically stab your NFL defensive back husband in the knee, even though that and the eyes are the most important part of a world-level athlete and your ass will be kicked the curb faster than the Colts would his if you damaged his career. (No shame if you weren't aware, I had to look it up myself.)

Two days go by and our columnist is apparently targeted by Isiah "Hi Jim I just got back from Red Lobster" Thomas and Isiah is going to kill him or some stupid shit. Who knows. I think nothing of my unacknowledged e-mail, figuring the guy is busy trying to buy a Kevlar shirt from Gothic Auctions.

Well, I tune in today to see his column.

NOT ME wrote:What were the odds that the ball would bounce right to Harper (the guy who was allegedly stabbed in the knee by his wife the night before), and what were the odds that Harper could have scored a touchdown simply by racing to the sideline, but instead chose to make a crazy cut back toward the field, where a wobbling Ben Roethlisberger somehow tackled him? Two inexplicable cuts in the span of 18 hours!

What the fuck is this shit? Did I just get ripped off? Or was the ha-ha, cuts can mean two things deal so obvious that everyone thought of it as soon as it happened? I'm either genuinely unable to make up jokes or fucking incensed here, I don't know which. Help me out here.

That joke is nothing like yours, the use here of 'cut' is unavoidable by everyone who thought they were going to be the first person acute enough to make such joke, and none of them, least of all these two, will be funny.

Yours was funnier, though.

also i'm sure he receives about 5,000 letters a week and didn't even read yours

I only wanted to get into print because Rob Neyer published your letter.