It has not been a particularly amiable week at work, school or at home throughout the state of Indiana this week. Water cooler talk has hardly crept above the hushed whispers that greeted co-workers utter on Monday morning; students and teachers that finally found some common ground in cheering for the Colts have fallen back into the typical pupil-instructor relationship; the sports page has been ignored at every dinner table. Everyone recognizes the culprit to blame for this widespread malcontent, but nobody will acknowledge it. The question will inevitably arise: Why even bother?

Why do we even bother to invest our time, money and emotional welfare in being a sports fan? Ask anybody in Indiana this week and they might tell you, with just a touch of bitterness, that the investment is a fool’s game. I have not bothered to ask that question of any Colts fans because I don’t need to. I was in Wisconsin on January 26, 1998; were you? Do you remember the palpable sadness in the air that Monday? If you swore off the Green Bay Packers after they lost to the 11-point underdog Denver Broncos, only to not miss a minute of the following season, you were not alone.

If the Packers did not break your heart in Super Bowl XXXII, maybe it was the Brewers in 2008. The crew shocked every last breathing Brewers fan when they orchestrated a mid-season trade for ace pitcher C.C. Sabathia, which became the lead story on the 5 p.m. SportsCenter and were the toast of Wisconsin. After riding Sabathia’s mastery over the National League to a playoff berth, the Brewers were done in after Sabathia was shelled in Game 2 of a divisional series against the Philadelphia Phillies. If you reverted back to treasuring announcer Bob Uecker as your favorite part of the Brewers, you were not alone.

My personal sports fan Waterloo happened just last spring when I witnessed the Chicago Bulls, whom I adopted as my team after comparing the 1993 Milwaukee Bucks to 1993 Michael Jordan, lose to the Boston Celtics in what many analysts accept as the most dramatic seven-game non-championship playoff series ever. I was a Neanderthal in front of the television during that series. I screamed, I cursed, I danced, I taunted, and when Paul Pierce hit a game-winning jumper with three seconds left in overtime of Game 5, I put my first through the glass surface of an end table that belonged to my roommate. That last act of primal emotion cost me $10 and a surprisingly minimal amount of blood. Unlike the two previous examples, I have to think that I was alone in this act of rabid and reckless support for a sports team. It can get like that with your favorite team.

All of this suffering, for what? Pledging allegiance to two colors and a group of athletes who made more money this week than you will from now until 2012 is a childish, unbecoming way to lead one’s life. Don’t the scenes of Saints fans celebrating their victory, after decades of disappointment and regret, remind you that it’s the only way?