With no Marion Barber, Romo will have to keep his throwing pinkie warm, as the expected wind chill at kickoff in Pittsburgh is going to be in the neighborhood of 7 degrees. In the meantime, I’d like to extend a hearty fuck-you-in-the-pants to NFL Network for playing Super Bowl XIII on loop all weekend, you jinxing assholes.

So how are Dallas fans dealing with yesterday’s news that Barber will be absent? Cautious optimism tempered with wisdom and restraint?

I love you, dipshit Cowboys fans. Don’t ever change.

Somehow this is only the third meeting between Steelers and Cowboys since Super Bowl XXX. Reading the chapter in Boys Will Be Boys about the game exhumed some rather unpleasant memories. But the most embarrassing for me was the fact that I bet our school’s equivalent of Jimbo, Dolph and Kerney $100 straight-up that Pittsburgh would win that game, knowing full well they weren’t gonna give me shit even if I won the bet. I was tired of being taunted that there was no way the Steelers were going to win and wanted the stupidest way possible to show I had faith in my team. Well placed, of course!

You stupid sexy, sexy kid!

Then two months later, I contracted Bell’s Palsy (Just like Jim Ross!) and had to spent the next five months getting electroshock therapy on my face to clear it up.

Fuck, I hated 1996.

Int. FedEx Field

[cellphone rings]

Tony: [grimaces] You got Romo!

Pinkie: Hey brah!

Tony: Nick?

Pinkie: Nah, brah.

Tony: Matt?

Pinkie: Nah, brah!

Tony: Who is this?

Pinkie: It’s me, brah, your pinkie finger.

Tony: My pinkie finger? How the hell did you get a phone?

Pinkie: It was a gift from Jessica’s foot after I fucked the shit out of her toe wedges.

Tony: Oh come on, how can a pinkie finger have sex?

Pinkie: Hey, just because I’m a little guy doesn’t mean I’m not packin’ some serious meat down south of knuckletown. See brah, this is why I’m callin’ you. Ever since you broke my ass people have been disrespectin’ me left and right.

Tony: What do you mean, pinkie?

Pinkie: Have you seen this bullshit cast they have me wearing? It makes me look like a fucking pussy! And another thing, tell people to stop callin’ me “pinkie” brah, I spent the bye week in Cabo gettin’ my shit all tan and sexified. I demand a name that better describes my new look.

[other cellphone rings]

Tony: Hang on pinkie, I have another call.

Pinkie: Tell that bitch Kremer to keep her frigid hands off the goods and get me one of those fancy knit hats.

[Tony answers]

Tony: Go for Romo!

Jessica’s foot: Hey baby, we need to talk.

Tony: Okay, hang on.

[Tony switches phones]

Tony: Hey pinkie, I have to take this other call.

Pinkie: Can you get me on Celebrity Apprentice?

[Tony hangs up]

Tony: What’s up, Jess?

Jessica’s foot: This isn’t Jess, it’s her foot. I thought you should know that your pinkie gave me toe herpes.

[Tony hangs up]

Tony: Why do I keep answering these damn phones?