Tiger, If You're Listening....

I don't want to be negative in the month of Christmas cheer and all, but I really have to get this Tiger Woods thing out of my head. Just for a minute, because, if you're like me, you are as completely sick and tired of hearing about him as you are of hearing about that stupid couple who crashed the White House party.

But this is Tiger we're talking about. In the beginning, I was simply heartbroken, and hopeful that it might all be an awful, ugly lie, when it was just Slut Girl #1. But before we could say, "Oh, Tiger, not you!" the Ho Girl Count had multiplied beyond any hope he might have had for redemption.

I always loved him. I thought he was a true role model for kids, even if he was kind of a control freak, and a little manic with all that drive and motivation. Still, he made me believe in athletes again, after I had to make my son take his Kobe Bryant poster off his wall, after Michael Vick, after Tonya Harding. (Ok, she doesn't really count. We knew she was psycho from the start.) I really, really wanted him to be the real thing. But alas, Tiger turned out not to be the Charles Ingalls of sports, after all.

But my problem now isn't about his infidelity at all. I'm past that, already crushed beyond repair. My new issue is accountability. This morning, as we were watching the Today Show, John says, "Oh, God, please don't tell me they're going to say he's a sex addict." And within seconds, I swear, those very words came across the airwaves.

I will buy into a lot of addiction. I believe that some things eat you up and own you. I've seen crack addicts and I believe in that kind of evil. But no matter how much the media wants to sell it, I can't buy sex addiction. Which is beside the point, because it's not the label I'm struggling with. It's the excuse. The cleanse-all: "It's not my fault, I couldn't help it, it was out of my control." It's the excuse I'm afraid they're going to use - Tiger and his handlers - for this behavior that dates back to the beginning of time and, up until lately, has simply been attributed to Shitty Ass Judgement.

Please, Tiger. Don't be that guy, on top of everything else.

If there is one shred of dignity you might have left, here it is: Own this.