"Is the cup half-full or half-empty?" is a philosophical question that psychiatrists have been plying patients with for generations. The response helps them in diagnosing their confused couch clients.
If a variation of that question were posed to the Razorbacks at halftime: "Is the game half-started or half-over?" it would be met with thunderous silence. The entire squad would already be packed up and waddling out the door.
Mercifully the 2016 college football season is finally behind us, "Belch" Bowl and all. We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. And just as we do for countless political, social, and cultural issues, we can once again be thankful for Mississippi. This time for their even more pathetic season (but at least the Rebs show up for the second half of the game).
What say we project this Razorback relinquishment of temporal awareness onto our own mundane lives? First--we will always be exhausted. Most of us consider eight hours to be a good night's rest. However, following the guidelines of the Razorback 50 Percent Rule, a four-hour sleep will be all that is required. Halfway through the night ... we'll just quit sleeping.
There would no longer be a 5 p.m. rush hour. Dolly Parton would have to change the lyrics to her popular song, "Workin' 9 to 1." Our workday would be a mere four hours. No need to show up for the second half. After lunch, we'll be headed for the house. Exhausted from sleep deprivation and four arduous hours of tedious work. Ready for another night's four hours of blissful sleep.
When we arrive home, our spouse will have prepared a wonderful dinner: half of a chicken, half of a potato, and in our half-cup of coffee with--what else--half and half.
Most of us will ride the bus to work because our cars will have long ago stopped running. We won't be able to have them repaired because our meager half-paychecks will only be for a half-week of work. We'll all retire at age 32 or so, subsisting on half of a Social Security check. (Whoa! My bad. It's already pretty much that way.)
Our one-and-a-half kids will go to bed every night hungry, the family's half-chicken and half-potato having only half the calories required to fill their little tummies.
But thankfully their schoolwork would not suffer. Yup--you guessed it. The Razorback 50 Percent Rule applies here too. Section 23, paragraph (c) clearly stipulates that halfway through their education, students will just quit and go home. They will graduate with a sixth-grade education.
Beer will be sold in three-packs.
Burgers will only have the bottom half of the bun upon which rests a half-patty of some sort of meat product (wait, wait--again, it's pretty much like that already. Never mind the burger parody).
I have figured out a personal upside to doing everything just halfway (a philosophy that seems to fit me well). By closely adhering to the Razorback 50 Percent Rule, I will have an abundance of free time on my hands:
I will watch only four-and-a-half innings of Cardinal baseball.
I will leave the theater halfway through the movie and beat the traffic home. Avoiding the 1 p.m. rush hour and all those dangerously sleepy drivers.
I will mow half of my lawn.
I will read only half of this newspaper ... which, come to think of it, is more than I read now.
With all of this newfound time, I will spend several half-hours every afternoon when I get home from work polishing my collection of half dollars while drinking a three-pack of Miller Lite that I bought at a discount liquor store on half-off Wednesdays.
Bret Bielema would only get $1,750,000 instead of $3,500,000 (I could have just typed the word "million" but I love the obscenity of all those zeros). But first he must survive getting fired and drifting away on a $15,000,000 golden parachute (ahh ... more of those incredible zeroes. How many do you have on your paycheck?).
There has already been a lot of ink spilled by those guys who fill the pages of Section C of this venerable newspaper. They have been tirelessly analyzing, prognosticating, and just downright guessing why the Razorbacks simply quit when there's still half a game yet to be played. Some have speculated that it might be a lack of discipline or self-control. Others--inadequate coaching and motivation. And others--not unlike most of the coaching staff--just plain don't have a clue.
Now, for all of you armchair quarterbacks who are still trying to dissect the etiology of this Razorback football squad malady, get up off your Doritos-and-beer-stained couches and pay attention. I'm about to proffer my diagnosis of our sick patient.
My daddy told me several years ago, "Bill, when you play the game of life, when you are out there engaged in the rat race, always remember it's not a level playing field. So you got to give 'er hell. Work hard. Go fast." I have never forgotten his words and have always worked harder and faster than my peers. Like him, I have no tolerance for those that take the slow road.
The affliction that paralyzes our beloved Razorbacks is not a lack of discipline or motivation. It's not a self-control issue. They're like that hypothetical cup. They're not half-slow. It's just that they are ... well ... half-fast.
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Bill Rausch is a freelance humor writer from Little Rock. Email him at williamrausch25@yahoo.com.
Editorial on 01/21/2017