Bad Influence

I have been in an NFL football pool for about 15 years or so with some guys from the company where I used to work. It’s the kind of thing where you kick in a small amount at the beginning, you pick games against the spread each week, and win by winning the week or the overall season. My son turned 10 earlier this year and likes football, so after clearing it with the wife (who thought it was a terrible idea), I allowed him to join the pool. I told him that I would cover his entry and he could keep anything won above that.

He was really cautious the first week and said he needed my help. He ended up mirroring my picks except for two games. He ended up winning both games, coincidentally, so he’s now up on me by 2 games.

This week, he asked for help again. So we sat down to look at the Thursday matchup and at least get his pick for that game submitted before the deadline.

Bears (+6) at Packers

I had already made my picks (you can change each of them all the way up to kickoff), but couldn’t remember who I picked. After talking it over, we decided to go with the Bears. He asked several times to make sure I had also picked the Bears. When I went back and looked at my picks later, I saw that I had actually picked the Packers and probably had good reason to, but since we had agreed together on the Bears, I changed my pick to the Bears.

When I got home from work last night and the game had kicked off, he told me that he had actually changed it to the Packers accidentally and then when he changed it back to the Bears, he had forgotten to hit the “save picks” button. So he had “accidentally” picked the Packers and so had pretty much everyone in the pool. Then he started dancing, pointing, and gloating that he was going to be a game up on me. Apparently, all of the experts on the internet also had the Packers winning easily.

I said, “What is the meaning of this subterfuge! YOU LITTLE…. OH, IT’S ON NOW!”

He replied, “Oh, you didn’t know it was already on?”

From now on, the kid’s on his own.