Five Analogies for What It's Like to Be a Cubs Fan

Ah, gentle readers, it is October, and I know that for some of you, sweet barbarians, you are following the game of football.  But not only is it still baseball season, but my beloved Chicago Cubs are in a playoff game against the vexatious Pittsburgh Pirates.

In fact, I tell you all now, the season is already a great victory for us, even if those nasty ones win and keep us from further post-season play, for our record has been remarkable and tragedy-free.  While we Cubs fans live in unending hope of seeing our team return to the World Series one day, our hope is fragile and inconsistent, rather like our fielding and relief pitching.

So accustomed are we to failure, in fact, that my fellow Cubs fans are all braced for a loss, if not to the Pirates, then to the Evil Ones of St. Louis or the Not Quite As Evil Ones Whom We Have Not Forgiven for 1969.

Rare is the sports fan who understands what it is to be a fan of the Cubs, so I, loyal friends, have endeavored to explain it through a few analogies:

Five Analogies for What It's Like to Be a Cubs Fan

1. It's like knowing that if you eat this candy bar, you will vomit.  But it's made of chocolate.  And it's the best candy bar in the world.  And maybe if you eat it really slowly and try not to get excited, then you can savor it.  Obviously, you ate the last one too fast.  And on an empty stomach.  But this time will be different.  So you take a bite.  It's wonderful!  So sweet, so rich!  This is the best candy bar in the world!  But then half way through, you start to feel sick.  But you can't stop because...chocolate.  So you keep eating, and you keep feeling sicker and sicker... And then you throw up.  Again.
2. It's like you worked hard in school and got good grades and didn't drink or do drugs or get yourself or someone else pregnant.  Then, on graduation day, it rains, your school burns down, and your parents give you socks as a graduation gift.  Brown socks. 
3. It's like April is the kindest month.  In April you fall in love.  You sing songs.  You wave flags.  You write passionate poetry.  And in August, your lover gets hit by a city bus with a big ugly red bird on it.
4. It's like dropping your ice cream cone in a mud puddle, begging your mom for more change, chasing down the ice cream truck, and getting a replacement cone, only to have someone knock the new cone out of your hands by doing a racially insensitive hand gesture.  Again.
5. It's like one hundred years ago, your great grandparents won a tidy sum in a local raffle.  Your grandparents, your parents and you have bought a lottery ticket every single week since then.   In 1945, your grandparents won one dollar, but a goat ate it.