*Stunned Silence*

I’m going to sleep now, and when I wake up, I will realize that this was all a dream, and that the Red Sox and the Yankees have not yet played.

Because there’s just no way the best two relievers on the Red Sox could have given up six runs in one inning. Right?

Yet there is this incontrovertible text evidence in my cell phone:

Sarah to Coley, Sept 14, 11:15pm: Hold me.

Coley to Sarah, Sept 14, 11:17pm: I have Papel-blue balls.

Sarah to Coley, Sept. 14, 11:18pm: He is suddenly their Papelbitch.

And then there was the following evidence, in my g-chat archive:

Me: oh honey. this is terrible.

Boyfriend: i’m too depressed to talk about it. i baked a red sox cake.

Me: was it really good for the first half

Boyfriend: yes.

Me: and then totally awful for the second half? did jonathan papelbon leap through your kitchen window and throw the cake in the trash and then swear into his glove?

Boyfriend: Sadly no.

Me: did it leave like 18 million pieces of frosting on base?

Boyfriend: yes.

Me: goddammit.

Boyfriend: but the cake has two layers, one red and one blue

Me: is it frosted with the broken dreams of an entire Nation?

Boyfriend: i don’t want to talk about the game anymore

Desperately in search of some bit of hard evidence that my beloved Red Sox had not, in fact, pissed away a game that they had clearly dominated through the first six innings (I could watch a lowlight reel of Giambi’s errors all day), I checked the box score, the play-by-play, even the photos. And that’s when I realized that this game couldn’t possibly have happened. No. In fact, there’s only conceivable explanation—I’ve gone back in time!

Now at least I can get some sleep. After all, I already know how this ends!