Daily Fantasy, Daily Life: Volume XII - Decisions In Bed
Being that I have three kids, two wives, and one dog…
Wait, no, that’s not right. Three kids, soon-to-be two dogs, and one wife – not to mention a job or two, plus assorted daily to-do’s – staying up to watch the west coast games is something that I do about as often as oak trees popping up through my living room floor.
Truth be told, the east coast games aren’t usually on my TV either, as – again – three kids, two dogs, and a wife. Basically, come 7 p.m. lock for the NBA, my sports day is done.
Sure, I’ll take a peek at a few boxscores as the evening wears on, and if I like what I see I’ll check in on my teams, but as a general rule, it’s family time. And wind-down time. And dinnertime. And bath time. And bedtime. And then “don’t-make-me-say-it-again” it’s bedtime. And “how was your day” time.
Listen – left to my own devices, I’d be watching everything, placing live bets, the whole schmear. But I’m not left to my own devices. Other people control my devices. And just to be clear – I’m not some fatherly and husbandly angel. I’d like to theoretically lock myself in the attic to watch sports all night, every night, but if I did, I’d also be divorced. So you know. A balance.
But yeah – back to the west coast games. I’m in bed most nights by 10 p.m. What can I say. I’m old and tired and the morning alarm is going off at 6:30 a.m.
I can’t stay up for west coast NBA games bruh, it’s noon and I’m ready for my snack and nap 🥱 pic.twitter.com/zOlhTm9ES4
— Taurean Patterson (@QuidProTau) July 7, 2021
And I also know, without fail, I’m going to roll over around 3:30 a.m. and come face to face with the biggest decision of the young day.
Now again, let’s consider: When I go to sleep during NBA and MLB season – which is basically every single night of the year – I’m going to sleep with a wholly incomplete picture of my day’s daily fantasy action. Even if I’m doing great, there is zero chance I’m staying up to 1 a.m. to see how things shake out.
And so, around 3:30 a.m. nearly every day – again, I’m old, shut up – I’ll roll over and wake up. At this point, I have four choices. The first three choices are all reasonable and sane.
Choice A: Tell myself, “Self, please roll back over, shut your peepers, count some sheep, and get three more hours of sleep.”
Choice B: Wake up, make coffee, get a jump on the day. I’ve tried this. By 9 a.m. I’m ready for bed. Not conducive to life in general, but at least I can knock out some work.
Choice C: Put my earbuds in and listen to old radio broadcasts of baseball games. (By the way, this is my preferred way to fall asleep. It’s boring, but just interesting enough for my brain to pay attention to instead of thinking about all the things I have to do.) From past experience, I’ll get in an inning or two and then I doze back off.
And then there’s Choice D. This is the bad choice. This is the “well, let’s see how those DFS teams ended up doing” choice.
There cannot be a worse choice. I’d be better served if I hired some dude to start jackhammering my bathroom while I try to fall back asleep.
It’s a terrible choice, because no matter the outcome, I’m not falling back to sleep.
If I happen to win a ton of cash, I’ll be too excited to go back to sleep. If I happen to win a little bit of cash or lose, I’ll be too aggravated to go back to sleep.
Either way, I’m undoubtedly looking at the winning lineups, cursing myself for playing Embiid over Jokic, probably now checking out the next day’s action, building a lineup or two, listening to “The Morning Grind,” checking Twitter for early news, and next thing you know an hour has passed, I’m wired, and the chances of me falling back asleep are next to nothing.
I say “next to nothing” because without fail, I will fall back asleep around 6 a.m., just in time for the alarm to go off in a half-hour, which will then cause me to go through the rest of the day bleary eyed and aggravated.
Rinse, repeat.
Of course, I can choose to NOT see how my teams did. Keep the lid on the box. Schrodinger’s DFS lineups, if you will.
And so sometimes, I try to not roll over and grab my phone, but that’s a whole thing, because if I don’t fall right back asleep, I’ll just be thinking about whether or not I won big, and I’m going to eventually check anyway and so I may as well just check now and …
I lost. Do’h.
Note to DraftKings and FanDuel: How about building a “turn off” function on your app?
OK fine, that’s stupid.
How about this instead: If I take down a tourney, you just send a push alert that wakes me up with the theme to Star Wars. It would also be cool if you could get a 19-year-old Carrie Fisher look-alike to bestow a medal on me as part of the celebration.
I’m full of brilliant ideas. I’m also exhausted. It’s 9:37 a.m.