All I can say is, thank God for the Sea-Monkeys. If it hadn't been for them, the night would have been a total bust.

Well, okay, I also have the Oakland Raiders to be grateful for. And that's no small thing in my book.

I stood in the TV department at Sears and watched the silver and black clinch their third-straight AFC West championship right after I picked up the Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys' MagiQuarium at Hammett's Learning World.

The Sea-Monkeys were a gag stocking-stuffer gift for my wife, who'd made the mistake of pretending to want them during our last trip to the mall a month or so earlier.

The Raiders victory felt like a little pre-Christmas gift for me. I need my team to get to the Super Bowl this year before salary-cap restrictions pull them apart, and their beating Denver on Sunday afternoon was a big step in the right direction. There can be no snow game in the playoffs this year, no opportunities for tucks (real or imagined) to come between the Raiders and post-season victory. This win over the Broncos leaves them a single victory away from home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. So standing around and watching Oakland put the finishing touches on its game -- even as idle salespeople buzzed by looking hopeful, then crushed to see I wasn't a shopper -- made the whole mall experience a little bit more palatable.

I didn't really want to be at the mall on the last day of the last weekend before Christmas. I certainly didn't need to be there (the Sea-Monkeys are cool, but hardly essential). I just kind of figured it was the right place to be. I was wrong.

I thought it would be fun to watch at least part of the Patriots' Sunday-night match-up with the New York Jets while standing in a department store. I figured I could hang there and interact with that contingent of the last-minute-shopping crowd who'd actually managed to procrastinate themselves out of a chance to watch the Pats try to edge closer to winning the AFC East. They'd swing by to watch a few plays, or just check on the score, and I'd be the guy they'd ask how things were going.

Until midway through the fourth quarter of the Raiders 4 p.m. game, it looked like my plan would probably work out. Other than a Sears salesman, no one asked me about the game, but a decent number of people had stopped by to take a peak. Not bad, considering the Denver-Oakland game had little bearing on the Patriots, who at that point still had their playoff hopes firmly in their own hands.

But as the Raiders moved closer to victory, the crowd in Sears started to dwindle. And by the time the game ended, there were few people in the TV department other than me and the sales staff.

A young saleswoman came by, stopped for a moment, then stepped just behind me and craned to look over my shoulder as I jotted some notes. I assume she thought I was taking down prices. Another saleswoman, this one middle-aged, stared at me from her post in the appliances department until all I could do was stare back and wonder if her hair color (dark brown going on black) was natural. A mid-50s-ish guy in a blue sport coat stopped briefly in the aisle between electronics and appliances and, it seemed to me at the moment, gave me the stink eye.

I decided it was time to take a little cruise around the mall to size up the likelihood that things would get better. It turned out that they probably wouldn't.

The crowds that had vexed me endlessly just a few hours earlier as I'd pushed my way through the mall from Macy's to Hammett's and Sears were all but gone. I moved back through the mall quickly, and stepped out into a parking lot, in which the main thrust of traffic was heading out.

The department-store plan clearly wasn't going to work, so I figured I'd better find a bar somewhere. I called up memories of sitting in the lounge at the Chi-Chi's restaurant just up Route 30 in Framingham, Massachusetts, watching Larry Bird lead the Celtics to victory on a big-screen TV. Margaritaville (that's what Chi-Chi's calls its lounge) was a pretty lively place to watch a game back then. So I decided that was my best bet.

I worried briefly about the potential negative effects of leaving the Sea-Monkeys ("actually a species of brine shrimp"), even in their freeze-dried state, sitting in my cold car. I scanned the box for information, but learned only that the manufacturer, ExploraToy, absolutely guarantees the little guys to live "up to two whole years." That and the fact that the "illustrations [on the box] are fanciful." Apparently Sea-Monkeys don't actually wear sunglasses, throw dance parties, or ride Razor scooters. I could only hope my wife wouldn't be too heartbroken.

MARGARITAVILLE wasn't quite the place I remembered from a decade or more ago. Or perhaps it was too much the place I remembered from then. Very little had changed that I wouldn't attribute to decay.

There was still a big-screen TV in the corner and a few smaller screens scattered around the room. Some or all of those sets may have been new -- or at least newish. Chi-Chi's had installed a pool table over by the big screen, where some prime lounge tables used to be. And there appeared to be some sort of construction project taking place over by the far side of the bar. Other than that it was the same old Margaritaville, only in need of a fresh coat of paint and perhaps a new bar.

It could also have used a better crowd.

There were a dozen or so Pats fans on hand for the game, but they weren't a particularly exciting bunch. In fact, other than the guy who seemed to think he was a smartass ESPN-studio-show host (a far less intelligent Keith Olbermann, maybe, or a far less knowledgeable and clever Chris Berman), the entire lot of them was largely subdued. And the Olbermann wanna-be was mostly just obnoxious.

He was already well in form, and seemingly three sheets to the wind, by the time I arrived. Sitting at the corner of the bar with a trio of buddies, he participated in ESPN's highlight show, NFL Primetime, loudly and ignorantly, much to the amusement of his friends.

"Bam!" he yelled cleverly on seeing a big hit from the New York Giants-Indianapolis Colts game. "That's my booooy!" he offered with irresistible wit as Giants running back Tiki Barber plunged in for a touchdown.

On watching a player's helmet pop off as the result of a powerful hit in the Green Bay-Buffalo game, one of his buddies asked (quite sincerely, it seemed), "What's it gotta feel like to get your helmet ripped off?"

The Anti-Olbermann's response: "Not good, Danny. Not good."

If I'd been in the mood to be generous (like in the holiday spirit or something), I might have assumed his pal's name was Danny. As it was, I could only believe he thought he was talking to Olbermann's former SportsCenter co-anchor Dan Patrick.

By the time the game started, I'd already grown to hate Anti-Olbermann. I hated his big, stupid, drunken grin and the plump upper lip at its center. I hated his stupid little round glasses. I hated his rounded, slightly bulging stomach and the pecs that might actually have been man breasts that sat above it. But most of all I hated his complete inability to shut up.

Then my outlook turned. I started to delight in his failed attempts to establish himself as some kind of football expert.

Not long into the first quarter, with the game still scoreless, the Patriots were called for a penalty during a punt.

"That's an illegal block," Anti-Olbermann announced smugly.

His buddy seated just to my right bought into his assessment. "He knows it before the TV guys."

But it turned out not to be an illegal block.

"It's illegal touching," Anti-Olbermann declared.

Wrong again.

"It's offsides."

Strike three.

It turned out to be an illegal procedure.

Still, Anti-Olbermann continued to work as unofficial color commentator throughout the first half, questioning the play calls, arguing with the assessments of ESPN's announcing crew, and invariably shouting out "holding" whenever a penalty was called. I kept thinking one of the guy's buddies should tell him that yelling "holding" every time you see a flag on the field is like yelling "blitz" every time you see the safeties advance on the line of scrimmage before the ball is snapped; you can't help but be right 70 percent of the time, but all it proves is that you've seen a football game before.

As Anti-Olbermann continued his irritating display, he started to turn me against the Patriots. The worse the Pats looked (and at times they looked simply pathetic), the less talking he did. And it reached the point where I simply had more interest in Mr. Obnoxious shutting up than I did in seeing the Patriots win an essential game against a division opponent.

In the end, of course, it didn't matter much what I wanted. The Patriots came out looking flat and continued to look flat throughout the game except during one stellar drive at the beginning of the third quarter. The Jets, on the other hand, looked like champions. They bested the Pats in every aspect of the game.

By the middle of the third quarter, even with the score tied at 17-17, it was obvious the Patriots were on their way to a second-straight prime-time loss. Furthermore, that loss would mean the Pats would need not only to beat Miami in Foxborough next Sunday, but would have to hope Green Bay, a team that has already qualified for the playoffs, could go into the Meadowlands and beat a motivated Jets team (coupled with a Patriots defeat of Miami, a Jets win would give New York the AFC East championship).

Anti-Olbermann took off his imaginary headset and headed for the door late in the third with the game still tied. I went back to rooting for the Pats, but I knew there was no point in it. The team's heart clearly wasn't in the game. They put in minimal effort, got minimal results, and walked away with a 30-17 loss.

And even though the Pats can still win the division with some help from Green Bay, by the end of Sunday's game it had become clear that depictions of the Patriots as an authentic playoff team are purely fanciful. They don't actually look like defending champions. They don't actually have a real shot at getting to San Diego for the Super Bowl. I can only hope their fans aren't too heartbroken.

Sean Glennon can be reached at sean@thispatsyear.com.

Issue Date: December 27, 2002 - January 2, 2003