Time shift

Now y'all know I love the Vols, but I love my sleep, too. And lately, with the baby's night wakenings, I'm really not getting enough. So when a night or evening game comes on, I don't listen live. With a five hour time difference between London and Knoxville, yesterday's game against South Carolina would have started after midnight here, and I really need to catch my Zs when the baby's asleep.

We turned on the game this morning - they keep the free audio up at UTSports.com for several days. I stayed away from the Internet, I didn't check any scores. I just listened as live.

But of course, it isn't live. So if things get a little boring (say with a big old lead like 21-0 at half time), then there's a temptation to switch away from the game and just check the score. But it ain't over 'til it's over - and anyway both times that I've quit listening at halftime this season, UT lost. So I couldn't stop listening.

And then things started to turn sour. Very sour. All of a sudden South Carolina were up and then it was tied. And we remembered the other thing that's made a difference. Whenever the baby hasn't been dressed in orange, UT lost. And the little guy hadn't a scrap of Tennessee orange on. The Vol-in-Law scrambled around the house looking for orange accessories, which to be honest aren't actually that hard to find.

Of course, the truth was that the game was already decided. But it's amazing, how you can get wrapped up in the moment passed.

But setting that aside with Cletus suitably dressed we appealed to the gods of football to turn back time - to reach back through the hours and change the outcome, because there was no way that Tennessee was going to pull this one out of the bag.

And in those long final minutes of sickening, growing dread that Tennessee was going to lose despite the fact that all the teams that needed to lose to keep us contenders actually had lost (Kentucky and Florida) it was tempting to turn to the score and end the pain.

And eventually my husband had to go out, so we succumbed to temptation. And you know what, Tennessee lost. Just as I suspected. And I turned to another website to get the story -and realised that I had somehow misread the score (I do blame sleep deprivation). Holy Moly, Tennessee won. All our last minute appeasements to chance had shifted time and resulted in the right score. Even the Vol-in-Law screamed in glee. (Of course, this set the baby to crying.)

Go Vols.