Sheltering Your Patriots Fan Friends From Two Weeks Of Tyree

Five simple steps to reduce the aggravation of being near whiny Pats fans

Let's assume that you have friends or loved ones who are fans of the New England Patriots. First of all, shame on you for having friends or loved ones who are fans of the New England Patriots. Don't you know how annoying those people are?

Secondly, you're gonna want to keep these people away from a television set for the next two weeks. Not for their sake, mind you. I don't care if you let your Pats fan boyfriend go play in traffic for six straight hours. No, you need to do it for YOUR sake, because for the next two weeks, you are going to see a constant replay of the David Tyree helmet catch from the last time the Giants and Pats met in the Super Bowl. And Patriots fans become impossible to tolerate when this occurs. Leave a Pats fan near a TV set when the Helmet Catch comes on and you will hear any of the following things, none of them pleasant:

"LUCKIEST PLAY EVAHHHH!!!"

"Oh, no! The Helmet Catch! Now is the time for me to spiral into a very public and very contrived bout of self-pity in hopes that you will comfort me by telling me what an awesome fan I am because I care too much!"

"WAIT TILL GRAWNK GETS HIS HANDS ON THOSE LOSAHS! REVENGE IS OW-AHS!!!!"

"This is just like the end of the Karate Kid!"

And so on and so forth. People, don't get caught near a Boston fan watching this catch on a widescreen television. You can distract them in any number of ways.

Here are our recommendations:

1. Put on some sort of commemorative Red Sox championship season DVD. This will help transition them from complaining about the Helmet Catch to complaining about the 2011 Red Sox. This isn't any better, but it is different, so there you go.

2. Bring up the Kendrick Perkins' trade. "DANNY AINGE RIPPED OUT THE HAHHHT OF A CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM!"

3. Lock them inside of some kind of hermetically sealed crypt. If it lacks food and water, all the better.

4. Wear a Bruins jersey around them. They'll make sure that you know that they never deserted the B's during their lean years.

Again, very few of these options actually render Boston fans any less annoying. You're simply trying to contain the annoyance, to keep it at everyday levels, rather than having it blow up into full-scale, fork-on-a-chalkboard shrillness.

Best of luck to you these next two weeks. You're gonna need it.

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