The Football Fan’s Manifesto tip contest turned bad publicity stunt that will only cause me pain and likely not lead to any additional sales has come to a head. I can’t close the poll for some reason but here are the results at midnight, when I said I would end the voting. And the piece of merch that’s going to be fried will be a Terrible Towel. You people are some suckers for symbolism, I guess.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I definitely don’t want to burn a towel. The ghost of Myron Cope will never forgive me. But compared to what I could have lost, this is a huge relief. Hell, I have three of them and can get more at about $5 a pop (which goes to public schools the Allegheny Valley School, so I can be smug about my meager outlay). A few canny dickbags in the comments mentioned that the Hines jersey, though a crappy replica, holds the most sentimental value for me. And they’re 100 percent right. It’s not even close. It’s by far the most valuable item to me of all the things I offered up for sacrifice. Broggel nerr smire foll week if he have buln that jelsey! Yet still you picked a towel. YOU FOOLS! I spent all afternoon panicking that I was gonna have to lose the Hines jersey. After all, I wore it in that picture that got me shitcanned from The Post. I wore the thing under another jersey during the Super Bowl because I was freaked out because I wore it during Super Bowl XL and my superstitions were running on overdrive. It’s a priceless piece of Apeiana! You could even have made me destroy one of the other jerseys or the Fathead, which set me back far more money than one of several Terrible Towels. Still, I’m gonna have to destroy a towel and probably will never hear the end of it from fellow Steelers fans this year. You’ll get your video next week, jackals.