the first step is admitting that you have a problem

If you know me at all, you know I’m no picnic to live with. I’m a walking double standard, a person who tells the whole internet about you taking your socks off and LAYING THEM OVER THE ARM OF THE SOFA while she herself wades through a lake of clothes to get to her side of the bed.

I am a woman who bitches quarterly about the lack of romance and affectionate gestures in our relationship, while competing with my teenager to see who can burp the loudest at the dinner table, and then goes in, unshaven and unshowered, to snuggle a three year old who still acts as fantastic birth control, nestled between us in the bed.

So you make take it with a grain of salt when I tell you that my husband has a problem, and its name is the Lakers. When we met, we fell in love over the fate that brought two Laker fans together across the universe. One year we watched an entire game over the phone, because the playoffs had started and I was still on the east coast preparing for our move to L.A. while he was there looking for work.

Once, we saw the team play in Charlotte and they won the game literally with the last shot. The entire stadium stood up to cheer while we sat down, dejected. And then! OMG in true Laker fashion they pulled it out once again and we were there to see it.

What changed? Maybe it was the Shaq trade. Maybe it was Phil Jackson pretending to retire. For a few years there, the Lakers had a rough go of it. My husband stopped watching as many games. We watched the playoffs sporadically, because it was hard to see the great Lakers playing like shit. A few times, I woke him up yelling at the TV while he worked hard to sleep through yet another doomed playoff series.

But this year they’re good. They’ve played well all year (not that I would know. I’m a fair weather fan, I’ll freely admit it; I wait until the playoffs to really start paying attention) and earned a spot in the finals. They have some fancy new players and Phil Jackson brought his zen back to L.A.

So can someone tell me why last night when I called my husband to come check out an awesome feature on my new phone (As is the custom during playoff season, I was downstairs watching the game while he buried his head in the sand that is Xbox), he turned to the TV, exclaimed loudly and profanely about a squandered lead (let it be known we were still up by 17 at this point), and stomped off down the hall without so much as a glance in my direction?

I find it completely unbelievable that we get so enmeshed, so emotionally involved, so obsessed with people we don’t know at all. That we feel entitled to their performances and personally slighted when a player makes a stupid decision on the court. Do we think they owe us? Why? Because we’re watching, and we’re buying the products advertised during the commercials? I don’t get it, and as I write this I feel compelled to confess that I feel like this too. I jump up and down. I yell at the screen. I cover my eyes. I curse the refs.

But I still watch. Because it doesn’t ruin my whole day when a bunch of guys I’ve never met throw the ball into the basket more than a bunch of other guys I’ve never met.

Is there some kind of 12 step program maybe? Some place I can refer my husband? Some kind of Priority Camp? Help me, Internet. What can we do to help him help himself?