This is me, making my picks. Why dad thought this was a good idea I will never know.
I woke up Friday morning to see that I am crushing my dad in the KUBE standings. Hey pops, are you smarter than a 6-month old?
Apparently not.
Dad thought he had this genius plan to rig my picks this year. Basically, he stole all my toys and seeded them into a blank bracket based on how much he thought I liked them. He then shoved a pair of toys from each matchup in front of my face and waited for me to grab one and shove it into my mouth – because that’s what I do #BabyLife.
Not sure how getting chewed and slobbered on equates to being a winner, but this is apparently how my dad thinks the world works. Anyway, you get the idea. All dad has to do is figure out which toys I will most consistently grab at, make them the top seeds and let me take care of the rest.
Seems like a foolproof way to let a baby genuinely pick his own bracket and keep it competitive – unless, of course, the entire system is set up by a fool.
The final results from David’s first Selektion Sunday… all his favorite toys seeded into four regions by category. Dad clearly has no idea which toys he prefers.
Dad’s first mistake was not letting mom seed the toys. Why consult the woman who is with me every waking moment of my life when you can make these calls yourself based on what goes down during a lunch break?
Mistake 2: Assuming I will grab the toys I play with every day over new toys I’ve never seen before. A wooden block may seem plain and boring to you, but I’m cutting teeth here and that thing fits in my mouth way better than some big, fancy electronic thingy.
But dad’s biggest mistake was not telling me what was going on in the first place. If it was a competitive bracket he wanted, how about letting the guy making picks in on the game? It would have been nice to know I was actually picking basketball teams, not which toy I was most interested in devouring at that given moment.
The toy that sent Hampton to David’s Elite 8. It’s hideous, annoying, a little creepy and apparently way more grab friendly than Snoopy.
So here I am, stuck with a bracket that has three different 16’s toppling 1’s. My first March Madness pick of my entire life was Hampton over Kentucky. That’s right, my dad successfully duped me into predicting that the first 1 seed to ever lose to a 16 in the history of the entire NCAA Tournament would be an undefeated team featuring two whole platoons of All-Americans.
The madness didn’t stop there, either. I was also conned into picking first-round losses for Wisconsin, Arizona, Villanova, Virginia, Gonzaga and Kansas – that’s seven of the Top 8 teams I have going one-and-done. Only a team that rhymes with my second favorite activity – puke – survived.
Great job seeding those toys, dad.
Highlights from my first Selektion Sunday
- Had to throw Dad a bone and let him know that he is at least succeeding in his early attempts to brainwash me into rooting for all his favorite sports teams. I sent the Rams football (Xavier) through to the Final Four with a head-to-head victory over a Broncos ball (Oregon) in the Elite Eight. I’m guessing I’ll learn later in life why the Rams weren’t deemed worthy of the 1 seed.
- That being said, not even “Cardinals 101” (Stephen F. Austin) could defeat “Why I Love My Mommy” (Utah) in the opening round of the “Books” region. This set up an epic Round of 32 battle against “Why I Love My Daddy” (Georgetown) — Dad’s favorite bedtime book, of course. We were deep into the selection process at this point and I could see Dad was pretty depressed at how miserably he failed at getting me to pick a competitive bracket, so I felt obligated to boost his spirits a bit by sending his book through (I still love you Mommy!).
David’s Final Four: Xavier (Rams football) and Duke (Little Dog book) with Louisville (Rubber Duck) defeating Wichita State (Holy Cow Bear) in the championship.
- You should have seen dad’s face when I reached for that Pig (Hampton) instead of Snoopy (Kentucky). He put so much thought into seeding each item, even testing out the top toys beforehand to make sure they would beat anything they came up against. It was no accident that he put “Stuffed Animals” in that upper left region. I had been grabbing for Snoopy all week long, so I’m sure Dad thought that was a lock to win the whole thing or at least make a deep run to the Final Four. But then he runs out of stuffed animals and spots that weird pig laying forgotten over in the corner. It rolls around and laughs whenever a motion detector sets it off, so I can only imagine both Mom and Dad were pretty fed up with it. Anyway, in it goes as the 16 just as space filler to complete the bracket and … OH LOOK, SOMETHING NEW TO PLAY WITH!!!
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I, David Robert Kukla, am the first born son of Dan Kukla, the first born son of “The Donald” Kukla. My twitter account @RealBabyKukla dad set up for me last year was hacked over the offseason, and now I’m locked out from sending any tweets. As revenge, I’m taking over this hack’s “Left Koast Komments” blog.
David’s first bracket, with his toy selections translated into their corresponding teams