Better to be an * than an a**

I don't know about many of you, but I'll be glad the football season is over.

Perfect is indeed the enemy of good. Yes, you can have straight A's from first grade to college, graduate with a summa cum laude, ascend from the ranks to the CEO, and then end up dead at your desk from overwork. You can be a child actor pulling in millions to billions of dollars, and then at 21, end up in the streets, partially nude, babbling incoherently, or at worst, be dead from a shotgun wound or drug overdose. You can meet your soul mate from first grade, marry after college, have two boys and two girls, and then end up dying from cancer at the ripe old age of 40.

Perfection above common sense kills. I will never be perfect. In fact, I was a straight B student, and nothing dastardly happened to me. I'm not married, and my world is not falling apart. The promoters, the hangers-on, and the Simon Cowells of the world thrive on perfection. They want to make sure their product has no flaws, no dings, and no skeletons hiding in their closets.

The Patriots may or may not have a perfect season by the end of the night. If they win at 19-0, it won't bother me. If the Giants win, making the Pat's season 18-1, it won't bother me. Both are excellent teams, no matter how much the New York Post asterisk-tsk-tsks the situation.

That's because after tonight, all that talk and hype building up over the past six months will be gone. The dopey stories about intermayoral bets, stock markets, inane commercials, premature claims to winning, scandals, and speculation will be lanced out like a giant boil, draining its poison into the sink, and salve of "no football" antibiotic smeared generously on the wound, covered by a six-month bandage.

UPDATE AT 10:08PM: The Giants won the Super Bowl, 17-14.