Sad to say but it turns out that all that is good in life comes down to cross-stitching. I just didn't understand the significance of picking up the needle and thread and creating a cuddly teddy that says "Art is in the eye of the bear holder." Nope. Not me.

But today, I am here to tell you why I love cross-stitch.

You see, cross-stitching helped the Red Sox overcome defeat last night and move on to the ALCS against the hated Yankees.

I had merely thought that it was my positioning of the little Wally the Green Monster on the center speaker of the surround sound that had been doing it. If not that, it was certainly the way I crossed and uncrossed my legs between batters. Certainly at best it was the tingling in my pinky fingers that I would aim at Sox batters as they stepped to the plate. Three days and we were on the verge of three wins...

At least so I thought, until the As started creeping ever closer to winning the game last night and sending the Sox home until February.

With each Oakland run and additional base runner, I adjusted Wally, flipped and flopped my legs and fired the Magic Hexing Pinkies at the television. Nothing seemed to be working.

Oakland loaded the bases and it was then that I noticed that my wife was staring intently at the game, her heart racing as fast as mine.

I looked right at her.

"What?" she said.

"You stopped cross-stitching!" I yelled.

"Yes, the game was getting too exciting." she replied.

"Damnit, woman! Break out the needle and thread and get working on that 'Feliz Navidad' Snowman thing you were doing before!"

"But..."

"Just do it! For the love of God and the Red Sox Nation, just do it!"

She opened up her cross-stitch box, plotting the ways this was going to allow her to divorce me and take my millions.

Then, Derek Lowe fanned pinch hitter Terrence Long. Sox win! Sox win! Sox win!

So today I sit, finger tips bandaged as I learn how to thread a needle. If this really works and the Red Sox win the world series, you better believe I am sticking with it like some skinny white Rosie Greer (although he was a Needlepoint Man himself). Next year the Sox are going 162 - 0... and I am going to have me a kick ass house made of cross-stitch.


*Brian Lewandowski waxes mysteriously every day at brianlewandowski.com