When I was growing up, we'd routinely collect the neighbourhood kids for games of road hockey on weekends. One of them was a Portuguese kid named Tobias, about five years younger than me. He'd bring his stick and plenty of enthusiasm -- but at around 4 p.m. on any given Saturday or Sunday, his broom-toting mom would beckon him back to the house with shrill calls of "Tobias!... Tobias!"
It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner... quite frankly, none of us really understood why he was being ripped away from our games at 4 p.m. with such regularity. But we'd come to expect it. Check your watch. It's getting close to 4 p.m. Time for what we all know is coming.
"Tobias!.... Tobias!"
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Every once in a while, she'd fail to emerge at the expected time. We'd take this as a positive sign. Maybe she'd finally calmed down. Maybe he'd actually be able to stick around for full games. Hell, maybe she'd fallen down the stairs and we wouldn't have to hear that shriek anymore (hey, kids are assholes, what can I say?)
(Yes, I'm using this same stupid fucking post for the FOURTH WEEK IN A ROW, which I'm sure is annoying for the reader, but nowhere near as annoying at TFC pulling the exact same fucking shit for the FOURTH WEEK IN A ROW.)
But soon enough, there she'd be, twice as loud -- as if to compensate for her delinquency -- with the cry we all knew was going to come. Why, oh why, did we think she'd ever stop? We would need to always keep an eye on our watches at 4 p.m., even if she missed a week here and there. We'd never truly be rid of her interference, no matter how our games were going, or how old we got.
I tell this story for two reasons. One, as an attempt to take everyone's minds off of yes, yet another (if you can believe it) catastrophic, points-dropping, last-minute concession by Toronto FC. And two, as a way of reminding us all that the occasional hiccup should not make us forget certain inalienable truths about the universe: Tobias's mom will always call him back in the house at a strange time. And Toronto FC will always, always, always make things terrifying at the ends of games.
Now, on this occasion, many TFC fans will take solace in ... well, not much of anything, really. You can only slam your head against the wall so many times until you eventually slump into unconsciousness, as it were.
So, here the Reds sit, with seven points from nine league games... and a fanbase likely participating in one (or, in a bit of cognitive dissonance only long-time TFC fans can successfully pull off, both) of the following activities:
- bemoaning the fact that it could have very easily been 14 points, if not for the late concessions against Philly, Los Angeles and Houston and New York and fucking Colorado, are you serious, how the fuck can this keep happening?
- happily shrugging "hey, that's seven points better than last year at this time! Progress!"
If you're still doing the second one at this point, you're being ridiculous. Seriously. This team could literally have twice as many points as it has if it were capable of playing beyond the 80-minute mark. Yeah.
It's potentially instructive to know that one week, Tobias never came out to play road hockey. We knocked on his door, no answer. The next week, same thing. Turns out, he moved away without telling any of us. Something we'd come to expect after years and years of the same... all of a sudden, without explanation, it stopped.
So, hey. There's always hope.
Some of us are stupid and deluded enough to still believe that. But most of the city has long since moved on, I'm afraid.