Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

As is made clear in our mission statement, management reserves the right to occasionally drop the fascination with esoterica in favor of talking pro football (the American kind). Let us now invoke that right in order to discuss our beloved Indianapolis Colts, who yesterday clinched the top seed in the AFC playoffs.

This accomplishment brings us a modicum of joy, but perhaps a great deal less than in years past. That’s not because we’ve lost our passion for the team, but rather due to the fact that repeated playoff failures have soured us on the import of regular-season success. We have extremely traumatic memories of losing to the Steelers in the 2005 divisional playoff game, after posting a 14-2 record. And don’t get us started on last year’s overtime loss to San Diego, in which we were done in by a punter.

So color us pessimistic at this point. That said, we are encouraged by one significant omen this season: the incredible beard now being sported by linebacker Clint Session (above). It took us a while to place our finger on why this beard is great, but we finally figured it out: Session is obviously taking his facial-hair cue from Gregory Peck’s version of Captain Ahab. This thrills us to no end, seeing as how Moby-Dick is one of our favorite books of all time. If Session is bringing some Ahab into the Colts’ locker room, could that mean the team is about to reward our years of devotion with another Super Bowl ring?

On the other hand, Ahab does end up missing out on his grand prize. But we’ll pretend that Session’s beard merely signals that our team is on the correct wavelength, rather than doomed to disaster due to someone’s maniacal obsession with the unobtainable.