Disappointment has a flavor, and it is orange and black peanut candy, the BBB rated subprime mortgage of candy flavors, a lubeless hand job you get from a lackluster date on the couch, the sad realization that at your current age you do not possess a flying car both because they do not exist and you could not afford one even if they did, walking across the finish line of a race eighteen minutes off your usual pace…the moment when you order sherbet from the ice cream man of life and he gleefully scoops up a mushroom-shaped heap of the shit flavor and plops it in a freshly baked waffle cone.

The recipients thus far of the shit-flavored sherbet of sadness thus far in ascending degrees of disappointment, beginning with number five and counting down:

5. Christmas/Georgia.

Christmas is disappointing. You get together with your family, half of whom are too busy gagging larvae full of food to talk, the other half engaged in proving you right in your suspicion that your “shared DNA bond” is comparable in effect to the 95 percent of DNA shared with chimps. And like your chimp brethren, you feel capable of ripping their arms off without a moment’s thought from time to time.

Georgia’s season peaked on paper: a preseason number one that, once the ball was snapped, fell into good status thanks to injuries on the offensive and defensive line. They’ve only lost two games and look to finish in the 10-2 category, numbers most other programs would dub as success…unless you came into this rodeo thinking you’d be number one and cruising into the SEC Championship game at this point. Their two losses were Hulk-ish beatdowns that were over by the second quarter on national stages with nowhere to hide, with the Georgia defense coming in for special opprobrium in allowing forty-plus in both contests to Alabama and Florida.

What failed? Not “heart,” or whatever fuzzy phantom that is, Chip “Miss Cleo” Towers. Losing Trinton Sturdivant at the most important position on the offensive line and then losing his his replacement hurt the run game more than it hurt the passing game, and not even Stacey Searls could overcome that kind of dent put in a unit’s depth.

The only thing worse would be losing a key defensive tackle, and that….wait, that happened, too. There is little need to worry about coaching dysfunction, lack of “heart” or whatever other bullshit Pop Warner pablum you want to crap out there. We like Towers as a matter of policy, but refusing to use substantiated events to back up a team’s in-game failure is beyond the pale.

Both Alabama and Florida were much better teams untouched by severe injury this season, and beat Georgia because they were both superior and healthy. Admitting one is a matter of a fact. The other is a matter of checking the injury report.

So, in summary: The spice cake was nice…but there’s something about getting a tie when you wanted the Rock Band 2 cymbals, or anything else other than the tie, which you can wear to work, or to your funeral. And that heated political argument with your uncle? The one that made your mom cry? Well, we’ll just hope to avoid that next year. Other than that, it went swimmingly.