I live very close to a professional football stadium. And any time the team has a home game, the city shuts down. I can't get out of or back into my neighborhood. I curse every mulletted, foam-fingered,jersey-wearing, fat-ass, red-and-blue-face-painted fan pouring out of the arena and parking lot. I curse their giant trucks and their bumper stickers and their flags. I judge. I point. I fume.

I don't pretend to understand the manufactured loyalty to a group of people that are paid kajillions of dollars to run from one end of the field to the other without dropping the ball. I don't pretend to understand the venom and vigor with which people defend their teams. At least with political parties the players are making decisions that affect the lives of others. At least something hangs in the balance, even if more and more time is spent on the campaign trail and in scandal than actually doing. Professional athletes play sports to get people to watch sports and spend money to attend live sporting events so that the athletes can continue to play the sports. And yet the fans rearrange their lives, their automobiles, their tattoos and their city's traffic cones around this loyalty and identity to a team.

So now, I don't find it surprising that people can order headstones with team logos emblazoned on them. Who wouldn't want to spend eternity under the Tennessee Titans' Logo? Who wouldn't want to Rest In Patriots? What could possibly be more eternal than the identity mark of a team that will be bought, sold, moved,and renamed? What's next -- This Plot Brought to You by Bud Light?