I'm in a Twilight Zone Episode

If Twilight Zone creator Rod Sterling were still alive, I would firmly believe he’s messing with my life. For more than a week now it’s been wicked hard for me to tell what planet I’m on.

You see after 10 months of living in Maine, where the Governor is keeping citizens and businesses held tightly in pandemic protocol, I’m on sabbatical in Florida. Mask sightings are as rare as pale people. There’s no 9 PM curfew here and the only social distancing occurs when someone throws up from too much Rum.

But that’s just the beginning of my Bizarro World. For the last two weekends I’ve watched Tom Brady win playoff games from right here in Southwest Florida, the heart of Buccaneer land.

In some ways it’s a lot like how I’ve spent playoff weekends for the past two decades. Cheering for TB 12 as he marches the offense up and down the field, barking at players and refs, and helmet butting receivers after touchdowns.

But I watched the NFC Championship game safely outside, 81’, on a patio, upwind from potential COVID 19 germs, in sandals and wearing sunglasses. Not normal.

My little mind is having a hard time wrapping itself around the experience of walking the streets and seeing so many people in Tampa wearing Brady Buccaneer jerseys or walking by a shop lined with Brady and Gronk jerseys.

Now I know how William Shatner felt when he looked out the plane window and saw the creature on the wing in one of the famous Twilight Zone episodes. Mind. Blown.

Seeing the names on the wrong jerseys is almost like color blindness. I’m surrounded by fans of the guys I cheer for, but the uniforms are so wrong.

I mean Pewter? That’s a color? Sounds like a Supreme Court justice.

I will be back in Maine by the time Brady and the Bucs take on the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Wait! What? Even writing that sentence makes me think I’m breathing in too much CO2 from my mask in this heat.

I feel like when I get home I’ll wake up in my own bed and just like what happens in about every Twilight Zone episode, I’ll think it was a dream, only to turn on my TV and there will be TB 12 in the Super Bowl with a pirate on his helmet. Rob Sterling would be proud.

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