What the fuck to write about? I mean — what the fuck to write about, about the Chicago Fire? “The Third Spoonful of Cold Oatmeal: Five Facts You Need To Know (That Weren’t True of the First Two!)” Ehh well, it’s only Thursday. I’ve got almost a week.

It’s Saturday afternoon, and the Chicago Fire have apparently come from behind - is that right? - to defeat a college team that’s in its offseason. Sounds like an opportunity to further despair! Delightful. (Ed. note: Yes, that is sarcasm.) But the scrimmage was behind closed doors, the lineups and stats aren’t available - is it even news? Ehh, I don’t have a column due until Wednesday. The 12 people who care just read about it on Twitter and have already moved on.

It’s 4:30 p.m. on a Monday, and I’ve got a column to write. But it’s not due until Wednesday, and one of the kids needs picked up after school but then she didn’t, what she needed was a ride home from work so there’s a couple hours here wherein writing could theoretically happen. The Fire did nothing again today. Niko got 7 minutes as a sub for Hungary, but the Magyars were not magnificent. ‘Seven minutes in a home loss to Scotland’ sounds like a Radiohead B-side that induces free-floating feelings of grief and shame. Plus it’s an national-team friendly, a type of match which inevitably rhymes with <infintely prolonged fart-sound>. Hard pass.

It’s 10 p.m. on a Tuesday and oh look, there’s more national-team friendly-ball on the intertubes. A USA team filled with vibrant young talent (that would’ve been shut out of the process entirely and watching from home had the US made the big show) put in a credible 90 minutes - huzzah! IBELIEVETHATWEWILL not see a column here attempting to tie the USA’s enforced time in the World Cup wilderness to the Chicago Fire’s continued flailing about, despite them being disparate symptoms of the cancer gnawing away at the bowels of US Soccer, because now it’s 9 a.m. on a Wednesday, and this damned thing runs in just about 4 hours, and I have to start work in 90 minutes.

Here, let me check Twitter - maybe the Fire have done something cool that will save this column at the last moment. I’ll just fire up the #cf97 hashtag and holy fuck what is wrong with these guys? Another episode of Triggering Libs Dinner Theatre is always underway, apparently, and our club’s hashtag plays host. But there’s got to be something here … I mean, they haven’t let everyone in content go, have they? They have, kinda? Oh.

I’ts 9:54 a.m. ...

The Third Spoonful of Cold Oatmeal: Five Facts You Need To Know (That Weren’t True of the First Two but ARE TRUE of the Chicago Fire)

1. There’s totally a raisin hiding in there somewhere
2. It’s already as cold as it can get so don’t worry about further cooling
3. Fiber, man - fiber. Keep eating
4. You can stop any time you want, so this could be the end of it
5. Did we mention the possibility of a hidden raisin? Yeah? Damnit, uh … fiber?

(Note to self: Go back and edit all mentions of ‘Five Facts’ in story to read ‘Four Facts’)