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Column: Not another spaghetti sandwich

I was watching a commercial where someone described their "happy place" as a massage chair at the mall.

After watching enough Super Bowls, I'm prepared for just about everything with a commercial, but the guy thoroughly enjoying himself in that chair made me want to vomit. I don't know what kind of malls this guy had been to, but my experience with massage chairs is not great.

It always starts out relaxing, and I feel this will be worth my time and money, and it turns sour in a heartbeat. Once the chair is at my mid back, it feels like someone is slamming me with an aluminum bat. I don't know if I have ever made it through the allotted time without getting up and as far away from that chair as possible. I've only had a couple of massages in my life, and it felt nothing like the excruciating moments in that damn chair.

It's just one of those things that I will never learn. While it's getting harder and harder to find malls these days, I'm sure one of the next times I'm at one, I will consider giving the massage chair one more try.

Much like the chair, my trying things I don't care for extends to other areas of my life.

About once every five years, I will see a picture of a very appetizing-looking meatball or spaghetti sandwich or see one of the sandwiches on a menu when I'm out to eat.

It's almost like I forget how much I hated the meal and want to give it another shot. I have this stupid feeling that something will change, kind of like how I hated pork chops when I was five, but now I enjoy them.

As much as I love spaghetti and meatballs and the idea of either on a sandwich, I always wish I had made or ordered something different. At the conclusion of these meals, I always tell myself to quit doing this, but I always give it another shot. I'm about two years away from one of these sandwiches looking appetizing again, and I hope I can refrain from eating one.

Another prime example of doing something I hate is playing fantasy football or filling out a bracket for the NCAA Basketball tournament.

While I watch my fair share of football, my favorite time of the year is the opening four days of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I will get up at 4 a.m. to finish my work in time for each day's slate of games. I had such a fantastic time a few years back watching my favorite team, Gonzaga, play at the tournament, but I'd much rather watch it at home, where I don't have to deal with people.

Whenever I fill out a bracket, I don't enjoy the tournament as much. Rather than embracing a considerable upset, which is one of the best parts of the tournament, I'm worried that I'm not going to win the family "pool."

I tend to become irritable about my favorite time of year rather than enjoying it. So, for the second straight year, I will not be filling out a bracket in 2024.

I always found the idea of fantasy football odd, so I never accepted an invitation to join a league. It seemed like a lot of work and, in many cases, just a guessing game, much like a bracket.

One year, I ended up joining a league, and after the first week of games, the competitive side of me took over. I was rooting for players rather than teams, and that just made things weird.

There were a couple of times I started rooting against my favorite team because I wanted to win my weekly matchup and that felt flat out wrong.

I know quite a few people who enjoy fantasy, but I will not be doing it again. I think I rather eat a spaghetti sandwich in a massage chair than have to go through another fantasy draft.

 
 
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