Hey, it’s Monday! What’s that? You’re curious what your illustrious Commish is doing in your inbox, or on your Twitter feed, pushing out content for the masses? Yea, me too…
Let’s be honest, the owners of the GMRRFFA don’t deserve me – in just the 2018 regular season, we’ve dropped 45 articles and videos for your pleasure and no other league remains that committed. Seriously, they don’t exist beyond riffrafffootball.com.
And, while I know you the reader appreciate me, I can assure you the owners of GMRRFFA don’t. Just last week, I was compared to Bob Villa (again) and the guy from OxyClean, been told my job is easy because I only have to write recaps and power rankings, one owner exclaimed that he doesn’t have to “justify [his] roster to me,” and another compared my alleged flatulence to the poor air quality in Oakland due to the wild fires.
Well, as I told Smeet on Friday, I settle all business today – and I surprise those owners with their biggest fears: What their spouses think of their obsession with the greatest fantasy football league they’ve ever been in. Yea, that’s right; inspired by the Lady of Dorne’s turn on Mark Hutchinson last week, I said “Fuck it” and went right to the real bosses; the spouses.
Now, one, some owners may claim this is crossing a line. I say, “Too bad.” Second, not all owners are married or in relationships, so yea they’re getting off easy but they’ll rue the day they take cheap shots at their Commissioner (ironically, its almost exclusively married owners that take shots at the Commish on the regular).
That said, I reached out to a number of league spouses and wowzers. Some background: I’ve met nearly all spouses in the league (but not all of them), and I recently retweeted one I'd never met so that makes us BFFs at this point. Also, I got a solid amount of responses – some surprisingly called GMRRFFA and boy chat “cute,” and that they enjoyed their husbands having something of a “hobby” or even being pleased that their spouses are interacting with other adults (by adults, I feel like that’s giving GMRRFFA owners too much credit but whatever). There were a couple of spouses who simply were a bit crazed, so not everyone had the time to comment but I appreciate all of you for humoring me – yes, even you Mrs. Riff Raff.
The feedback on boy chat (the label some give the GMRRFFA WhatsApp group chat) was interesting. One noted how her husband literally LOLs, another asked if we could mute the chat during dinner/bed time (ie 5-8 pm though I’m pretty sure that’s impossible), and yet another expounded upon her husband’s highlighting the nuances of the chat beyond just fantasy football. (Side note: Did you know GMRRFFA was a fantasy football league? Me neither.)
In any case, I was full on hoping for some blistering critiques of GMRRFFA owners’ responses to trades, boy chat, and wins and losses. To be sure, we got some, but surprisingly we also got a lot of warm feedback from spouses. One even noted she didn’t want to poke fun at her husband and hoped he kicked everyone else’s asses (attention Mark Htchinson, that wasn't the Lady of Dorne).
So, mostly for my own pleasure and to satisfy an early-season prediction that someone will leave boy chat before the end of the season, take a look at some of the comments below…
Mailbag Question – What’s More Important, League Draft Dates or Anniversaries?
Probably my favorite largely because its Smeet, but if his bi-weekly mailbag isn’t enough of a sign of commitment to the League, take a look at Mrs. Smeet’s comments:
“When approaching our 1st anniversary (August 31), Smeet was talking about being sad that summer was ending. He said "but there is something I am excited about at the end of the summer". I'm thinking he is going to say something sweetie about our anniversary but his response was ‘FOOTBALL!!!’”
Oh, it gets better:
“Also with our anniversary at the end of August, I have to wait until the draft is scheduled to even think about making plans.”
For the record, in 2017, Smeet’s weekly softball schedule was tougher to schedule a draft around than his anniversary.
Seriously, NO ONE Cares About Your Fantasy Football Team
On occasion, I broach the subject of a recent trade acquisition I make to Mrs. Riff Raff, and before I complete the sentence, I am 100% certain she’s not interested in the deal or my season as a whole, just like co-workers, fellow commuters, Twitter followers, kids, and pretty much everyone else in my or your universe. (By the way, this isn’t exclusive to GMRRFFA owners – its accurate of all fantasy football owners. Twitter, its true and just deal with it).
Unfortunately, not every GMRRFFA owner is as self-aware, and some, in the doldrums of yet another losing season, really need to stress the highlights of their season – here, let Mrs. Maisel share the details:
“According to Fredo, he’s not doing well this year so he’s all into trading for good players who he thinks will help him win next season. The past couple of trades have been “amazing”, I guess, and I’ve had to hear about them over and over and over again.
“One night, Fredo comes home from work and he’s glued to his phone because he’s finalizing a trade with someone, and something about the guys have to vote, and the Commissioner has to do something which I forgot blah blah blah…. anyway, once he got what he wanted, I had to hear about how great of a deal it was, before dinner, after dinner, getting ready for bed, oh and the following day just in case I forgot how great it was the last 50 times I heard about it.
“Couple of days later, I hear him working on another trade and I just… [vomit emoji]”
Working Overtime
When I get home from GMRRFFA HQ, I like to leave work at the office (usually) and when I’m actually working at home, its legit, this-stuff-pays-the-bills sort of work (which riffrafffootball.com ain’t doing… yet). Other GMRRFFA staff members don’t have the same level of restraint… take this anecdote from Mrs. Sausage:
“One day I was picking the Sausage King up from the train station and he got in the car on the phone. He was having such a serious conversation that he couldn't even say hi to me or his daughter in the backseat. The call lasted the whole ride home. When he got off the phone, I asked is everything okay at work..... He tells me it wasn't work, it was his brother and they were discussing Fantasy trades.”
It gets better – for a staff member like the Sausage King, who pays little regard for deadlines, Mrs. Sausage shares how he really gets his work done:
“[He] literally has stayed up until 1-2 am in the morning on Tuesday night[s] writing his weekly column.”
Now that’s dedication…
A Bromance AND a Hobby
I’ve known Mrs. Garcia a long time – more than a decade, in fact – and when I thought this idea through, I was expecting a rousing beat down of the Commish and my evolution to a grey-haired individual, but alas, on GMRRFFA, Mrs. Garcia gets it (and by “it” I think I mean the aura and soul of GMRRFFA but I have no idea what that means):
“As far as the league goes, I think it’s great. The WhatsApp chat is cute, like a big bromance between all of you. He spends a lot of time on fantasy football and this league, but he has always been into sports and it’s a great hobby for him…”
Hold on, its getting dusty in my work space… oh, there’s more:
“He has told me briefly about the different write ups and how everyone is actively involved, which definitely makes it a better league than the work league (that league sucked balls).
“Also, he has officially forgone the crocs now that:
Making New Friends
Not long ago, the Unicorn sent around a message in the boy chat asking for some retweets of Mrs. Unicorn’s tweet, and man that was a mistake. Once I got to Mrs. Unicorn’s Twitter page, I promptly found her work email and couldn’t resist reaching out to a COMPLETE STRANGER to engage on the subject of the Unicorn’s love affair with GMRRFFA… seriously, he said this on Friday:
Subsequently, instead of being dumped in to Spam, I was super excited to get this response from my new friend:
“I’ll readily admit it annoyed me at first – I’m not a football fan and am pretty opposed to the NFL as an institution, so I didn’t really understand why the Unicorn got so worked up about the draft, setting lineups, winning or losing each week. And I definitely didn’t understand how a group of guys could spend so much time on what I’ve dubbed “boy chat.” But the Unicorn explained his dedication to the fantasy football league as being less about the sport and more about a way to stay connected to friends on the other side of the country. He also regularly informs me that boy chat covers far more nuanced topics than fantasy football. So, in that regard, I think it’s a nice thing for him to have in his life."
That was nice, right? Mrs. Unicorn seems like a class act, but she wasn’t finished. For a reigning champ like the Unicorn to complain about not getting his championship belt on time, thanks exclusively to Toby Kobach’s disregard for timely work product, this was pretty shocking:
“I am, however, still waiting for him to take me to a fancy sushi dinner with last year’s winnings.”
Seriously, you’d think the Unicorn would – wait for it – pony up some cash to get the Mrs. a good meal, but alas, I digress… cheap mother f*cker.
Blood from a Stone
I know what you’re thinking: “What does Mrs. Riff Raff think of this project?” Welp, needless to say, I’ve made multiple requests (and continue to do so) to get an official response from the Chairwoman of the GMRRFFA Board of Directors (ie my boss because I don’t play any other way). Thus far, her spokespeople have been somewhat unresponsive, aside from this official statement:
“Obvi u have a lot of time…”
Gulp…
Divorce Court?
And finally, we come full circle back to the Lady of Dorne, who started the whole thing by outing Mark Hutchinson’s secret identity last week. I was most excited for the Lady’s response, and damn she didn’t disappoint. Last week, Mark responded to the big reveal that his wife was a “traitor,” so it can only get better.
First, the Lady of Dorne was more excited about this project than even me;
“[This project] is the best thing I’ve ever heard! I constantly go around bitching how the only time I ever see Mark multitask is when its fantasy football season.”
Savage! I prompted her again later in the week about the project, and she said she’d do me one better than an anecdote – she actually shared video below of Mark Hutchinson’s straight mockery of Toby Kobach from earlier this season after the latter cried foul of a trade/heist involving OBJ… I’ll let you decide:
Well played Lady of Dorne, well played. In any case, if any owners get a boy chat from Mark Hutchinson looking for a couch to crash on for a few weeks, this is probably a good reason for it…
Thanks so much to the wives who spent some time participating – this was fun and I’m fully recognizing the nuclear fallout in the boyschat that’s happening as you read this, but just remember I firmly believe that this was completely, absolutely 100% worth it.
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