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Diary of a Grown Man With His Foot in His Mouf
By Riverboat in Flotsam and Jetsam
May 28, 2011

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What do you do when you say something stupid? REALLY stupid? Do you backtrack and try to make amends, or keep on going as if you said something profound?

All of us have at one time or another committed some social faux pas. I vividly remember when I made some crack about a disease (something to do with the nervous system), and a girl I was with said, "Hey, my brother has that!" I wanted to crawl in a hole. I DID mutter an apology, so at least I accomplished that.

Of course, one would have to have an awareness that a serious blunder had been made in order to backtrack. But I think it's safe to say no normal person would plow right ahead and even put an agent between him and a dumbfounded public.

Tiki Barber, one of those multi-millionaire athletes afflicted with a narcissism that makes Donald Trump look like Therese of Lisieux, has none of that self-awareness, let alone common sense that would tell him to leave well enough alone.

Tiki, in case you never heard of him (I hadn’t), played for the New York Giants, and is lately a sports commentator. His real name, if it’s relevant, is Atiim Kiambu Hakeem-Ah Barber. Tiki recently drew attention to himself by abandoning his pregnant wife to hook up with a 23-year old girlfriend. He decided to elude media hounds by hiding in the attic of his agent who happens to be Jewish. So far, so sordid. But Tiki brought chutzpah to a new level by comparing himself to Anne Frank. The world’s most famous teenager hiding in a secret annex to avoid being sent to a Nazi death camp is akin to an overpaid athlete ducking his family responsibilities. Yeah, that’s how bad he sounded. Bad enough to earn the scorn of anyone with a sense of morality and history.

But – BUT! – his agent – Jewish, remember - defended his client, claiming that Barber was trapped in the attic for a week. Trapped?! Was CNN going to report his whereabouts and send him to a camp surrounded with barbed wire, snarling German Shepherds and Nazis with machine guns?

I don’t know what’s worse, the ignoramus who skipped history class to spend more time hitting a tackling dummy, or someone who may have actually had some connection with a Nazi death camp victim. Both, I hasten to add, are equally culpable in skirting family responsibilities.

If he were smart, he’d keep hiding in that attic long enough to at least read the diary of that girl who hid in an attic in Amsterdam during the final years of the Holocaust. Not ducking a pregnant wife. Just trying to stay alive long enough to become an adult. One with responsibilities.