Knicks 109, Nuggets 93: The Joy of Victory

by James Marceda

The Knicks won a game last night for the first time in 145 years, which made me happy, but how happy did it really make me, and what kind of happiness was it? Can we measure the happiness on a scale of, say, 1 to 100? How about 69 to Shmurda? Did it occupy physical space? Did it make a sound? Did it have hopes and dreams and feelings of its own? Could last night’s happiness have experienced its own sadness, even?

/disappears into own asshole (sounds like a slide whistle)

Was it a dull, ephemeral happiness akin to the modest pride of clipping one’s toenails without incident? Was it a more sustaining happiness, like the stuffed-belly contentment of a stew well-made (so many tasty leftovers!)? Or was it a more fleeting but perhaps more powerful happiness, something along the lines of the ever-dwindling thrill of orgasm?

These are the questions that interest me. These are the questions that haunt me. These are the questions that fuel my ability to momentarily wrest my gaze from the void. Let’s explore them, shall we?

[SPOILER ALERT: we shall]

Question 1: How Happy Did Last Night’s Knicks Win Really Make Me?[[MORE]]

Before last night the Knicks tried and failed to win a basketball game 7 times in a row, which is a lot, but it’s not so bad when you consider that the ceiling for this team is probably somewhere just north of .500. You could have reasonably expected them to go 3-4 or 4-3 during that span, but instead they went 0-7. It blows, but it doesn’t blow so hard that your ear drums pop and your face turns red (I suppose you’re doing the blowing in this analogy)

Still, it had been two calendar weeks since I experienced the feels I feel when the Knicks win. Normally I would’ve felt those feels 3 or 4 times during that span, which seems significant.

If we think of a Knicks victory like a hit or dose or whatever of a potent drug, it clears things up quite a bit. We spent two weeks abstaining from that drug (let’s call it “coke”), so last night’s win (let’s call it a “fat” “rail”) packed more of a wallop than it would have if we’d been doing coke twice a week for the past two weeks. With that in mind I’d say last night’s win or “fat” “rail” was at 140% strength of a normal win or “fat” “rail”.

Ipso facto I was at 140% happiness last night, but that’s against a baseline of a Knicks victory in November. This is a good starting point, but it doesn’t tell me everything I need to know. For that we must determine…

Question 2. What Kind Of Happiness Was It?

What kind of happiness is a Knicks victory in November? Is it better than child birth? Worse than a New York Post headline? How can we be sure?

I hate to do this, but for the sake of fairness we must briefly consider that what happens in these games has no “real” affect on our day-to-day lives. This is a problematic statement for a number of reasons, primarily because it dismisses mental health as a “reality,” but let’s humor the point for a moment. We still hate our jobs, we’re still getting older and worrying about becoming one of those bald-ass, dying-ass 90-year-old dads at our son’s high school graduation ceremonies, and it’s still raining outside on a Monday. DON’T YOU HATE RAINY MONDAYS?

This is true, but it’s also the kind of thing that idiots say to make you feel bad about liking sports because someone bullied them in grade school. I wasn’t Mr. Cool Dude Sports Man either, brah, but I got over it because basketball is a fun way to stay in shape and an even funner way to justify getting drunk and throwing pretzel rods at the TV.

Still, it’s a point that bears mentioning. A Knicks victory will not, in the narrowest sense, help you get a promotion or find Mr. Right, though who can say what’s possible when you go about your business with the cheery disposition of a happy sports fan?

Clearly, though, this is not the happiness of falling in love or writing a chill ass sonata. It is not the happiness of doing something for yourself or loved ones that requires hard work and sacrifice. Nor is it the happiness of something that takes no work at all but ends with you captaining a private yacht along the Amalfi Coast (let’s say your father is a fracking lobbyist or founded Walmart).

How can we pin this happiness down? Can we draw some equivocations? What’s really happening here?

I would argue that it’s a cheap happiness in that I did nothing to “earn” it. All I did was care enough about the outcome to get worked up about it.

Nor was it a long lasting happiness, though it did sustain me for several hours as I read recaps and checked Twitter and later, just before bed, masturbated with very little anger in my heart

Cheap. Unearned. Many hours long. Anger-free masturbation afterward. Hmmm…

I would argue that last night’s happiness lives somewhere between ordering really tasty mozzarella sticks from Seamless and having a bunch of clean laundry. It was longer lasting than an order of mozzarella sticks, but not as long lasting as two weeks of fresh, clean undies. It was less guilty than a couple of gooey, golden, deep-fried mozzarella sticks, but not as virtuous as hauling 30 pounds of shit-stained underwear three blocks in the rain to the laundromat.

Alas! We’re still triangulating! What kind of happiness was it exactly? Surely we can do better than listing two ends of a spectrum and sloppily pointing a grease covered finger somewhere in between. We must be precise! We must not hem and haw like a bunch of GUTLESS COWARDS!

I’ve agonized over this, guys, and I’ve come to the following conclusion:

A Knicks victory in November is exactly equal to your significant other bringing over an order of delicious mozzarella sticks, a side salad with balsamic vinaigrette, and a pair of clean underwear for tomorrow. Last night’s victory, being worth 1.4 times that baseline, was equal to roughly 8.4 mozzarella sticks (a standard order being approximately 6 mozzarella sticks) and 1.4 pairs of clean underwear. Everything is still delivered by your significant other, but now you’re watching an episode of Frasier while you eat the mozzarella sticks, and there’s probably a root beer (Stewart’s).