That game just about killed me.  After the game, I grabbed my London Fletcher jersey, walked out into the middle of the street wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and nothing else, and I unceremoniously dropped that flaccid attachment to pain onto the blacktop, and stormed back into my house. 

I've never done anything like that before.  I'm usually a pretty cool headed fan, and I hate having to buy things twice.  So as I lay in bed twenty minutes later, cursing under my breath and waiting for my girlfriend to try to remind me that 'it's just a game,' or 'you shouldn't get so worked up over things you can't control,' just so I can tell her were to shove her words of wisdom, I realized something.  I wanted my jersey back, or, at least I realized that I would want my jersey back by the time the Bucs come to town.  So I sat up, and wearing the same dignified outfit that I had on the last time, I marched out the door to retrieve my one and only game day get up.  It was gone.  Apparently, twenty minutes is too long to leave a Bills jersey in the middle of the street in North Buffalo.  Whatever, I threw it away for a reason right?

Fast forward to today.  My boss, call him Dr. Strangefan, is a Dolphins fan.  He was born and raised in this city, and now he's raising his kids in this city, and he's a die-hard, turquoise and orange blooded Dolphins fan.  He claims that he always has been.  To my relief, he was out of town on business for the past two days, so I didn't have to hear him tell me things about the Bills that I really feel myself.  When I got to work today, I saw his car in the parking lot, so I knew right there that I was going to have to sit there and take it, I mean, besides the fact that he's my boss, he's also going to be not-wrong, and I won't argue for the sake of arguing.  But something strange happened, when Dr. Strangefan came up to my desk to tell me what a bunch of hard luck, self defeating, choke artists the Bills are, he instead tried to tell me what a bad team they were.  How they are untalented.  How they couldn't stop the Patriots who were just 'laying back' all game because they knew that they could 'turn it on' whenever they want to.  How the Pats D completely 'dominated' the Bills in the second half, and how once Tom Brady realized that he actually had to 'try' he just 'decided' to expose the Bills for the bunch of 'bums' that they are. 

Well, to my total surprise, I found myself defending the Bills.  At this point I should make it clear that my Boss it a good guy and in no way does he discourage me disagreeing with him.  He likes to argue, so it's not like I was torpedoing my career by speaking up.  "You're dead wrong Dr. Strangefan.  The Bills played very well."  "The Pats were shaky in the first half because the Bills were getting to Brady."  "The Bills offense moved the ball almost at will for the entire game."  "They didn't get the ball down the field, because the whole secondary was covering two people."  "Trent wasn't checking down.  He was taking what the defense was giving him, which, by the way, is what the mythical Tom Brady did every game of his career before Randy Moss showed up." 

Man, I was really letting him have it, and suddenly I realized that I do like this team.  Yesterday, I was contemplating blowing off the game on Sunday to take my girlfriend up to Toronto for Dim Sum.  But now, after arguing with a semi-crazed Dolfan, I'm looking forward to the game.  I think that the Bills are going to go out there and destroy the Bucs.  It's not reason.  I have no basis for it.  I'm just a fan again.  I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow, arguing with an enemy made me realize what we have here.  15 football games.  There are 15 more games for the Bills to show me what they can do.  I'm over it.  Just like that, I'm over the single worst loss that I've experienced since I became a Bills fan.  Thanks Dr. Strangefan.  Your completely biased opinion of the events of Monday night have miraculously brought me back from the brink.  I'm now resolved.  Go Bills! 

And, oh yeah, any ideas on which jersey I should buy to replace the one I prematurely wrote off?