I’m lookin’ at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna f***in’ smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You’re so pretty. — Barry Egan

This weekend, a few things happened to me. I’ll start with the bad: the Cubs lost.

You already know this. It’s been two days since the Chicago Cubs disappointed you, and me, in the sort of total and damning way only they seem to be able to pull off. And because it’s been a couple of days, you’ve likely read or heard the following words in some combination 40 times: “curse,” “next year,” “Bartman,” “It’s Not Gonna Happen,” “100 years,” “heartbreak,” et. al. If you’re anything like me, you read or heard them while bleary from drink, exhausted from enthusiasm, and drained by disappointment.

Of course Saturday, and the ensuing coverage, was bad enough, but that wasn’t the worst of it. It was Thursday night. And it was Friday. It was the worst interim to be a Cubs fan because no matter what, the trained blind faith that goes with the territory met the surety — though not mathematical, surety all the same — that I, we, would have to carry on like nothing was wrong. Friends planning a flight to L.A. would still go; fans wanting tickets to the NLCS would still buy them. We would still watch. As if it mattered.

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