God With Us!

O boy! O boy! It took me three trips to the supermarket, this afternoon, to lock and load for the game tonight. I got salty sticks, killer pretzels, cheese nips and a wide rank and file of potatoes chips, mustard and dips you’d murder your neighbor for!

I got Coke, 7-Up, five kinds of beer, two bottles of locally produced wine, a pint of kamikaze sake and vodka in a bottle shaped like a Kalashnikov. At the veggie market I secured a battery of cucumbers and red paprika, pickles, tomatoes and those little bullet onions. I’m gonna cut them up and splay them on a plate like a bunch of casualties.

All my friends are coming over because I got the biggest TV and the coldest fridge. And we’re gonna cheer our guys on until they whoop those weasels something awful. We can’t help it; it’s in our blood! We’re The Partisans, or Red Star, or so I’m told, and tonight we’re going head to head with those other guys, Red Star or Partisans -- I’m not sure, it depends on who we are. All I know is that we’re great and they suck!



But apart from that, I must haste to add, it’s nevertheless cute how once meaningful and terror-striking names are now so often applied to elements of a social expression. The red star was once the venerated or abhorred emblem of communism, essentially the system that created Yugoslavia, inflated its economy and left it a smoldering hole in the ground after its demise.

The Partisans were once roaming groups of merciless militants operating in occupied Yugoslavia, fighting the enemy by means of guerilla warfare. Now one is the name of some football club and the other is the name of the best football team in the world!



And when our guys have whooped their guys, I got an even better treat for my friends. The other entertainment station we get here in Serbia, namely CNN, is showing updates and specials on an even more awesome game: Das Kapital versus The Terrorists!

O boy! O boy! I sure hope I got enough beer in the fridge.