Tie (Apr. 3)

You can tie your shoes. You can tie a neck-tie. You can tie a ribbon around a present. But the one thing that seems to be worse than anything is a tie in sports. It is like kissing your brother. Yet, it seems to be something that most sports tolerate to some extent. Even in professional football it is possible for a game to end in a tie. But it is funny that most sports when they are played in the USA will not end in a tie. Then you go just about anywhere else around the world and some of the very same sports will be allowed to end in a tie. No one likes a tie any more or less anywhere around the world, but it seems the rest of the world seems to have found a way to cope with the sublime tie that is like swapping spit with someone you would never want to do just that with. In the USA it becomes okay to let the game end in a tie because there is always overtime. Elsewhere, when overtime is not in the rule book, the very end of the game becomes ever so more important because the last thing that you want is a tie and there is less time to change that outcome from happening. When it is put that way, it seems almost more important to be willing to let a game end in a tie. It will make you fight harder to not let it happen.