Lost & Found: Time

All my time-keeping devices are set to the future. My watch - five minutes ahead. My alarm clock - ten minutes ahead. My pocket watch with the dimestore whore engraved on the inside - fifteen minutes ahead. (OK, I don't own that. But it'd be sweet if I did.)

I'd assume that a very large number of people do this. The problem is, in the back of your mind, you always know that it's ahead. You wake up, see "8:18 am" and you hit the snooze, thinking, "Eh, I've got ten more minutes."

Appropriately, this week's "Lost & Found with the Denver Broncos" is being filed late. I thought I had more time.













A clock. That's also a calendar!

This was found outside the home players' entrance at Invesco Field shortly before kickoff on Sunday.

The Broncos played their most complete game of the season against the Chiefs. True, they were playing a pretty shitty team (sorry, co-worker Scott), at home, with the opposition's star running back on the bench. But whatever. When you're two games back in the division - two and a half, with the Chargers' earlier win - and just as far back in the wild card entering the final quarter of the season, you take a W when and where you can get it.

Unfortunately, it's probably too little, too late (damn you, Titans). Hit the snooze, roll over, and look forward to next year.

(Although I hope Mike Shanahan has a recurring nightmare this off-season: Don't kick it to Hester, don't kick it to Hester ... Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!)

Lost & Found: Hands

Do you know how much a large birthday cake costs? A gigantic, mouth-watering chocolate mousse cake? That can feed 40 people, or 240,000 Olsen twins?

A lot. But holy cake-eating Christ was it good (if not slightly misspelled).

It was my girlfriend's birthday recently. I got her a bracelet. Why? Because women like jewelry. (If you're a man, and you did not know this, walk over to a table, place your penis on it, and smash it with a hammer.)

Luckily, she liked it. And it ended up being her birthstone! Score, and score (she didn't know it, either). Sometimes, I do things right. These times are like lunar eclipses or a James Dolan coherent thought: they occur very rarely, and are extremely short-lived.

I mention this only because I nearly bought her something else: a pair of gloves. She has a semi-cheap cotton pair, the kind you get for three bucks off a guy's table on 18th St. and Fifth Avenue. So I walked around the Union Square holiday booths, and found one that was all gloves.

Leather gloves with laces. Leather gloves with zippers. Leather gloves with buttons. Leather gloves that go halfway up the forearm. Felt gloves. Silk gloves. Satin gloves. Gloves made from the meat curtains of nubile Russian strippers.

We're talking quality shit here.

But I decided against it, ultimately, because of why she needed them in the first place: she had lost them. Fuck that! I'm not spending money on something that's going to be left at a bar. I'd rather spend money on something that's going to break and fall off because of shoddy workmanship; that's an overriding philosophical principle, right there.

This quaint little foray into lessons of relationships brings us to: Lost & Found with the Denver Broncos!

This week:











Gloves.

These were found outside Oakland's McAfee Coliseum, new and unused.

Now these guys needed some fucking gloves. Or maybe some 70s-era Raider stickum on the ones they had. Something - christ. We've got normally sure-handed Brandon Stokely dropping passes, we've got Travis Henry fumbling the spliff all over the place, We've got Jay Cutler coughing up the pill ... what a mess.

This season was supposed to be for Darrent and Damien. Now it's for naught, and the Broncos are even teaching others the Denver Way To Honor Your Fallen Brethren.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go smash my penis with a hammer.

Lost & Found: Common Sense

Todd Sauerbrun: Wait, wait, lemme get this straight ... you want me to punt it to Devin Hester?

Mike Shanahan: Yeah. That's what I said.

TS: To him? As in, so he can catch it and run with it? How's about I give it the ol' Pythagorean pooch and angle it out at about the 30 or so.

MS: How many times do I have to say it? We've been covering him good all day. Hell, he even muffed one earlier that we turned into a touchdown.

TS: I know, coach, it's just that ... well, look at their offense. They can't do anything! We hurt Cedric Benson and got him out of the game, which would be doing them a favor - because he blows - if it weren't for the fact that they have the wrong Adrian Peterson coming in to replace him. And have you been watching Grossman shoot passes all over the field? Christ! He makes David Carr look like Joe Fucking Montana!

MS: Dammit, Todd, the second half just started. If he was gonna do something spectacular, he'd have done it by now. Just get the hell out there and punt that thing as far and as straight as you can.

TS: You're the boss, Shanny.

[Sauerbrun punts to Devin Hester. Hester returns it 75 yards to tie the score at 13.]

TS: Shit, coach, what'd I tell ya? The guy's too good to keep down. Tacklin' that guy is like watching Carlos Mencia - no fun at all.

MS: [glares, makes mousy-face]

[Several minutes later, the Broncos score to go up 20-13.]

MS: Kick it to Hester.

TS: No fucking way. Really? Are you ... are you watching the same game that I am? Look, I got nothing but time over here on the sidelines while these two record-setting offenses titfuck each other all day. And I've been looking at the rule book, and - check this out - nowhere in here does it say you actually HAVE to kick it to a guy on a kickoff. Nowhere at all! I can shoehorn that badboy straight the fuck off Lovie's dome over there, and all they're gonna do is put the ball at the Bears' 40. That's it. No return, no dirty hands, we give them good field position and laugh when Grossman slingshots it right into Ian Gold's numbers. Or fumbles the center exchange like a Notre Dame third-stringer. Either way, you gotta admit, it's a pretty solid plan.

MS: You heard me. Kick it to Hester.

TS: [Sighs] You got it, Chief.

[Devin Hester receives the kick near the 10 and goes all the way to the house to tie the score again at 20-all. Thousands of Broncos fans curse in agony, even more so after a ridiculous 37-34 OT loss.]

TS: [shaking head, under his breath] Fucking "Mastermind." Mastermind? Who the fuck played that? It was like the goddamn Yars' Revenge of board games. Fucking Mastermind. Goddamn Jenga is more like it. One wrong move and - bam! - you're under a pile of shit. Jenga Shanahan.


And now, Lost & Found with the Denver Broncos:
















Brains.

These were found at the Broncos' practice facility in Englewood. Apparently, they didn't make the trip to Chicago.

Lost & Found: Chains

Fuck you, Shawne Merriman. Fuck you, Philip Rivers. Fuck you, Norv Turner. Fuck you, Herm Edwards. Fuck you, Larry Johnson. Fuck you, the high school kid who coaches the Raiders and whatever dishwashers/heroin addicts/pregnant mothers/Too $hort cover artists/jizz moppers are currently dressed and/or employed as players. Fuck all y'all. We're pissed off. Hungry. Thirsty - for fucking blood. Whether it comes from your jugular, your carotid artery, or in spasmodic menstrual squirts from your bloated, puffy, vaginal slits of shame, we will take it and toast to the festering piles of your decapitated corpses.

The Broncos ride tonight.

Are you prepared for: Lost & Found with the Denver Broncos?

This week:














Shackles.

These were found just outside the home locker room at Mile High the second, at about 8:25 pm Monday. Art Pleeson, a stadium security guard, happened upon them ... and heard a mighty shriek, which turned his pubic hairs white and chilled his blood to near-devastating temperatures. After a cup of coffee and a Camel Light, however, he was fine.

So, in closing, fuck apathy. And bullshit. No, tonight felt a bit more like it's supposed to: Good.

Lost & Found: Weight

You know what one of the worst things in the world is? And I don't mean that in a nuclear-holocaust, AIDS-on-every-corner, Al Roker-naked kind of way; more like an I-hate-when-shit-pisses-me-off kind of way.

One of the worst things is that feeling in the back of your throat when you know you're about to get sick. For me it was Saturday night, walking out the door on the way to go to dinner and No Country For Old Men. (Quick recommendation here: if you're at work right now, leave. If you're at home, leave. If you're at an internet cafe, why are you wasting precious time reading this garbage? Stop and leave. Trample, stomp, and otherwise run the fuck over everyone and everything in your path to the nearest theater playing this movie; pay whatever obscene amount they're charging; sit and enjoy. And if you're located in one of the many armpits of this country that does not have access to this majestic piece of filmmaking; wait for the calendar to read "November 21" and proceed.)

Everything seems fine, and then you feel it. Back there. A little clammy ball, or something. And you think, "Aw, fuck." You know it. Sure as you live and breathe, you know you're about to deal with anywhere from two to five days of stuffed nasal passages and a runny nose (how the hell does that work???), coughing fits, and an overall encompassing shittiness.

The worst part, I've decided, is the hygiene. At least here in New York, when you're on the subway or in the elevator and you have to sneeze, you frantically try to pull out that ancient parchment of a Kleenex that's been in your coat pocket for about two centuries. Funny thing is, if you don't pull it out, you probably have a relatively dry push. But when you do yank that dry, flaking piece of trash out, that's when you have a splendid tsunami burst forth from every orifice in your face that doesn't see things. And when you try to wipe up all your own goo, you look like Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters collecting the slime in the petri dish at the library.

And everyone around you looks at you uncomfortably, and shuffles slowly away like you have the plague.

So, suffice to say, I didn't go to the bar to watch the game on Sunday. I did, however, watch it today at work.

And, without further ado I bring you: Lost & Found with the Denver Broncos!

This week:


Weight.

A baby gorilla was found after the game wandering around a parking lot outside Arrowhead Stadium. If it had been before the game, the poor little thing would've been barbecued.

It was not only a big relief to get a win at all, considering the Monday Night debacle against the Packers or last week's testicle-flattening at the hands of Detroit, but it was good to get the first win in Kansas City since 2002.

Denver took some dumb penalties, and Jay Cutler hit his customary highs and lows, but the defense looked pretty solid once again (playing against the woefully inept Chiefs' offense notwithstanding). All in all, the Broncos would be tied for the division lead if it wasn't for some douche named Adam.

Next up: a Monday-nighter against the Tennessee Titans and hometown boy LenDale White, featuring the battle of the Texas Youngs. Selvin vs. Vince, only on ES....er, only at Inv....umm, only in Denver on Monday Night!