Episode 18: "Call Me Shellfish"

Intro:

It took 2 false alarms, but we made it.

Wikipedia originally suggested there would be 13 total episodes. Then, to the distress of my laptop that was almost thrown against my bedroom wall, the listing was changed to 16 episodes. And then the kicker, they extended once more to 18 episodes. I’m a player of principle, and the bylaws of the sacko failed to specify an episode limit, so I had no choice but to trudge forwards.

Consider the trauma induced by this 3-part punishment: spend hours watching an awful sitcom, relive the pain on a weekly basis by writing about each episode, and then call attention to the misery by posting publicly about each write-up. It’s like having a dump taken on your face, smearing it on yourself, and then yelling for passersby to witness the ordurous scene. Every week. For 4 months.

But at last, it’s over.

Takeaways:

1. Spend proportionally to ROI: I have a tendency to go all in on projects I take on, especially when there’s a public-facing component. It’s important to overcome this inclination and give tasks the effort they duly deserve (in this case as little as possible).

2. Batch tasks. Originally, I would complete one full episode at a time - watch, take notes, flesh out notes, write intro, screenshot a post cover photo, publish to blog, tweet. This process would take me roughly 2 hours per episode. Once I gave up on tryhard mode, I started batching each of these activities, 5 episodes at a time. My average per episode time plummeted to 40 minutes. That’s a 67% savings on time - across 18 episodes that’s 24 hours of potential time saved.

3. Factor worst case scenarios when making time commitments (read: effective value): I failed to consider the downsides of losing fantasy when renewing participation and agreeing to the punishment. As my analysis below demonstrates, opting out pre-season would have saved myself a lot of time. On the other hand, I would’ve looked like a dick if I did that, which outweighs a lot of practical considerations.

You’ll notice that none of these takeaways have to do with the show itself. I’ll admit that the characters grew on me over the course of the season, and the show was much less predictable than I expected. I’m genuinely impressed by Mayim Bialik’s well roundedness and Phil is an icon. If I didn’t have to write blog posts for every episode, I might have even come to look forward to what happens next. But there were no Bill Murray-esque personal growth moments from my rendition of Groundhog Day. I don’t even feel joy now that it's over. I just feel tired. This punishment was a pesky burden running like a background process computer virus in my brain since it started. Any potential silver lining just looks like a blurry gray. Not even gray with an e.

This was by far the worst punishment yet. I would have spent 5 full Saturdays in McDonalds over this. I would have driven back and forth to New York 3 times. I suspect no future punishment will be this ridiculous. However, the damage has been done and I won’t be sticking around to find out.

Historically, there have been 3 reasons for me to remain part of this fantasy football group:

1. I enjoyed watching football

2. An excuse to stay in touch with my friends

3. Potential winnings

Until this season’s loss, I was blind to the potential downsides. Now, they’re tattooed to the insides of my eyelids.

There’s a fine line between extreme thoughtfulness and sounding inhuman. At the risk of the latter, let’s break these reasons down.

1. I enjoyed watching football. When I was younger, I loved watching any sports as much as I liked playing them. In middle school, and football on Sundays was part of my routine and I never needed to think about why. Then I learned about concepts like mimetic theory and other psychological biases. I began to question every aspect of my life, my beliefs, and my desires. I became incapable of decision making without internally requiring a why. Reasons had to be hierarchically aligned towards my objectives. Objectives had to be severely critical and utterly open at the same time. In the case of watching football, I realized my interests stemmed from second order desires to learn skills, experience awe from incredible feats, come closer to understanding greatness, and socialize with others.

   1. Learn skills - I love to play sports, they’re a fun way to stay healthy physically and mentally. I also like to be really good at things that I do, so I regularly aim to learn how to get better at different sports. Watching is a great way to learn, but there’s a lot of garbage time in sports. For skills acquisition, it’s a much better use of time to watch specific clips from highlights on Youtube.

   2. Experience awe - I love experiencing the absurd - unexpected, improbable events that suspend belief and demonstrate that anything can occur. They motivate me to create similar types of experiences since those are aligned to my own life goals. Many of the most absurd moments happen in sports. They’re particularly special to watch real-time since predictability is core to this value, and watching highlights increases predictability of something awe-inspiring taking place. The most incredible moments tend to be highly concentrated in the final 2 - 5 minutes of a game, and given that a typical sporting event lasts 2.5 - 3 hours, it’s a much better use of time to limit watch time to the end of games.

   3. Acclimate to greatness - I want to be elite in very specific areas of life. Athletes are elite at what they do. Observing them in their element inspires me to work towards the same. Once again, highlights and final moments of games tend to accomplish this objective. There are many alternatives beyond watching football to observe elite activity, some of which also contain additional areas of growth more aligned to my goals.

   4. Social elements - Sports are a great way to socialize. Especially as someone who interacts with a lot of people who love watching sports, staying up to date is useful for relatability and connection. Given how much garbage time there is in games and how minimally the material gleaned from watching games actually surfaces in conversation, it’s a much better use of time to limit watch time to events with high viewership (e.g. Super Bowl) and otherwise review key scores and highlights. The exception to this rule is when watching games with others, especially if it’s a live event, since there is a lot of socializing possible during the game itself. Personally, I prefer the hype social atmosphere of a live game over the game itself.

2. Friend Group. I care about the people in my fantasy group, and I saw participation in this league as a way to stay in touch with them, especially as I spend more time as a nomad. Ironically, I spent more time with the cast of “Call Me Kat” during the past few months than cumulative time with anyone in the fantasy football group. This punishment has been a net detractor on my time spent with the people I’m in this group for. I could apply the 4.8 hours from the calculation below and apply it to spending time with the people in the group and get a lot more out of the experience.

3. Potential winnings. So that leaves us with potential winnings as the last tenable reason to stay in the league. There’s a substantial level of luck required to win a fantasy football league, but the minimal amount of time I spend watching football certainly puts me at a disadvantage. If there was an equal likelihood for everyone in our 12-person league to lose the league, that would give me an 8.3% probability. Since I likely spend the least amount of time paying attention to fantasy, I’d up my probability of losing to 15%. On the flip side, I’d peg my probability of winning the league at 5%. I spent 32 total hours on this fantasy football punishment. 32 total hours * 15% = 4.8 hours expected time on punishment per year. The average winnings of our league is $1,000. $1,000 * 5% = $50 expected winnings per year. $50 / 4.8 hours = $10.42. So I would need to value my time at $10.42/hour or less for the potential winnings to be enough. I don’t.

Let my punishment mark the borders of sacko land that should never be crossed again. Let my withdrawal be a sacrificial aid for future league losers, cast like a preemptive life preserver to my brothers who are yet to walk the plank. I may have drowned, but may my spirit be felt in the winds that carry the ship.

And so, on my final inhale, I have hereby completed the 2022 Fantasy Fellas Sacko punishment. And on my final exhale, I humbly bow out.

Episode Recap:

Phil, Max, Randi, and Carter are in the urgent care lobby waiting for Kat. Sheila emerges and lets the others know they can see her now. She had a panic attack but she’s going to be okay.

Cut to Kat at a therapist’s office. She tells the therapist that she decided to quit her career as a math professor and open a cat cafe after her dad passed away. She was really close with him, he’s the reason she rescues cats and thinks about other people before herself. The therapist points out that the Cat Cafe might be a way for Kat to feel close to her father, and she feels as though if the cafe fails she’s also failing him.

Max is going to Nashville for a month to continue working on music with Robin Thicke.

Max, Randi, Phil, and Kat are at the cafe. Kat has an idea to throw a “save the cafe” fundraiser at the Middle C bar.

The Cat Cafe fundraiser is happening. Between the auction and online donations they raise $4k. Despite the successful fundraise, Kat is still feeling the pressure of keeping the cafe open and has another panic attack.

Kat is looking for ice cream at night and sees a vision of her dad in the kitchen. They have a conversation about the cafe. Her dad tells her that maybe keeping the cafe isn’t what she really cares about. She’s not sure what else to do, and her dad says that “sometimes you need to be shellfish.”

What an absurdly random one-liner to name the season finale after.

Kat has gathered the whole crew at the cafe, and she lets them know she will be closing the cafe down to take a break for her mental health. Everyone is supportive of her decision.

Randi and Phil visit Kat to tell her that they want to keep the cafe open while Kat takes a break from operating it.

Max gets on stage and sings a song for Kat called “Celebrate your face.”

This was really, really bad and made no sense even with the context of watching 18 episodes.

Fast forward to 3 months later, Kat is in Paris at a hotel and tells the audience that she’ll see us all in a few months.

Nope. That is simply not going to happen.

The group waves and the episode ends.

This is the first and last time I’ll enjoy this show’s ending sequence.

Memorable Quote:

Kat to Therapist: “What do you want me to say doc? Don’t put dolls on the table if you don’t expect me to put my hands up their butt.”

Phil about coffee: “Plus, I gotta get my morning cup of joe - trains are piling up in the tunnel if you know what I mean.”

Episode Score: 7/10