For those who awoke this morning with Belichick-quality blues, unable to quite recall last night, here’s the play-by-play:

First Quarter:

15:00: Stephen Gostkowski kicks off to the NYG 2. Jerrel Jernigan returns for 21 yards to the NYG 23 and is tackled by Antwaun Molden.

…I really couldn’t care less who wins this stupid game, but since it makes no sense to stay up late watching it without making so much as a cursory bet, I place $20 on the underdogs—Crybrady already has too many Superbowl rings.  My opening drive is a six-pack of Brik, a malty, citrusy Irish Red Ale from Royal Oak, MI—one of my alma maters.

9:00:  Tom Brady throws an incomplete pass to the middle. Penalty: Intentional Grounding on New England (Tom Brady) -6 yards. Safety.  NYG 2, NE, 0.

3:29: Eli Manning passes up the middle to Victor Cruz for 2 yards and a touchdown.  NYG 8, NE 0.

3:24 Lawrence Tyne’s extra point is good.  NYG 9, NE 0.

Brik is gone; potty break while I open a couple of ‘Holy Grail’ brews instead of sitting through commercials that are trying way, way too hard to be hilarious.  Hey guys: beer-fetching dogs and babies talking like grownups has been done to death.  On the other hand, Belgique beauty Trappistes Rochefort 8 is a style which has not been done enough—creamy, foamy and filled with fig, dried citrus flavors and yeasty spices like cinnamon and and clove.  Another moiety of malty monkish moonshine is Chimay Triple.  A pale, wheaty ale with cottony carbonation and a lemon pepper finish, it’s got an almost wine-like sweetness—muscato, if I was to get specific.

Second Quarter:

13:52 Stephen Gostkowski’s 29 yard field goal attempt is good. NYG 9, NE 3.

0:15: Tom Brady’s pass to the left to Danny Woodhead for 4 yards and a touchdown.  NYG 9, NE 9.

0:08: Stephen Gostkowski’s extra point is good.  NYG 9, NE 10.

HALFTIME:

Madonna’s wardrobe refuses to malfunction. No worries: I turn instead to her 1992 magnum opus ‘Sex’—a systematic treatise that is to coffee-table  schlock what  Xenophon’s ‘Oeconomicus’ is to Socratic dialogue.  Meanwhile, I pop the cork on a magnum of M. Lawrence’s  opus, also appropriately named ‘Sex’, and savor each sparkling swig while noting that Madonna has only slightly less body hair than Larry Mawby.

Madonna’s Botox® lips remind me that I to forgot to put on my Bytox™ strips. These all-natural, so-called ‘hangover-prevention’ patches are touted to deliver depleted  vitamins and nutrients to the limbic systems of self-abusers. We shall see, Pilgrim.

Third Quarter:

11:25: Tom Brady passes to the left to Aaron Hernandez for 12 yards and a touchdown.  NYG 9, NE 16

The Doppelbock is gone, and it’s not looking good for my double sawbuck, either—is the fix in?  Brady needs a shave, but this looks like a points shave.  Say it isn’t so, Elijah…  This calls for your namesake, Elijah Craig 12 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.  And plenty of it.

11:20: Stephen Gostkowski’s extra point is good.  NYG 9, NE 17.

6:47: Lawrence Tynes’s 38 yard field goal attempt is good.  NYG 12, NE 17.

0:40:  Lawrence Tynes’s 33 yard field goal attempt is good.  NYG 15, NE 17.

One man’s whimper is another man’s simper

Fourth Quarter:

1:04 Ahmad Bradshaw rush up the middle for 6 yards for a touchdown.  Point after good.

FINAL: NYG 21, NE 17.

Okay, all’s well that ends well.  I’m using my twenty bones to pick up  a fifth of Everclear 151 proof grain alcohol to kill any rogue pathogens that might have entered my body via the trans-dermal Bytox patch.  Last thing I remember, the patch is still firmly dermal.

MAÑANA:

Normally, after a night of drink-induced frivolity (or as we Detroiters say, ‘alcomaholism’), my first waking sensation is one of utter personal disgust in which anything I might have done the day before, no matter how heroic, selfless or noble—like forcing my way into a burning Children’s Hospital and carrying tons of helpless toddlers to safety (and I’d have to be pretty seriously wasted to do that)—seems totally narcissistic and rude.

With the patch, the hospital scenario does not feel egomaniacal in the slightest—just stupid.

And my head does not feel like it has been pulverized by a passing troupe of mud bogging monster trucks either, but rather, like it’s been used as a t-ball tee by a group of slightly-challenged kindergartners.  Nor does my stomach feel like somebody has been spoon-feeding me kitty litter, but more like I ate a couple of liverwurst canapés that have been sitting in the sun for a few days.

The young lady with the Bytox patch is not as attractive as she seems–you’re drunk.

It is, apparently, the result of the myriad B-Complex vitamins contained within the Bytox patch, everything up the B ladder from B₁ to B₁₂ with a little E,D, A and K tossed in for good measure, and to make sure that trendapoids sit up and take notice, 20 mg of acai.

Final analysis, the product may not have totally eliminated the symptoms, but it did meliorate what would have been a raunchy wake-up call.

I might suggest some formulaic additions—leave out the acai in favor of Vitamin X (Xanax) and my favorite member of the B-complex family, Vitamin Beam—but of course, that would sort of make me a Monday morning quarterback, wouldn’t it?