Little David is in the 5th grade. Yesterday morning when the teacher asked the children what their fathers did for a living, all the typical answers came up: fireman, policeman, salesman, etc.

The teacher noticed that little David was being uncharacteristically quiet and so she asked him about his father.

“My father’s an exotic dancer in a gay bar and takes off all his clothes in front of other men. Sometimes, if the offer’s really good, he’ll go out to the alley with some guy and do it with him for money.”

The teacher, obviously shaken by this statement, hurriedly set the other children to work on some coloring, and took little David aside to ask him, “Is that really true about your father?”

“No,” said David, red faced. “He plays for the Detroit Lions, but I was too embarrassed to say that in front of the other kids.”

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I’ll never forget the first time I saw my grandfather cry. It was 1983, I was five years old, and the Detroit Lions had just missed a last second field goal to lose in the playoffs at San Francisco. It was the beginning of the 49ers dynasty of the 80s, and the first in what would be a lifetime of misery as a Detroit Lions fan.

In India, many Hindus believe that when you are born, your fate in this world is already determined. If you’re lucky, you are born into a caste that allows you to get an education, enter public life and pursue any profession you choose. If you’re born into a lower caste, however, you’re screwed. Doomed to a life of poverty, you’ll live your life in pain and hunger, and probably die a miserable death much earlier than your contemporaries in other castes.

I was born in Detroit, and like my father and grandfather before me, I am a Lions fan. Like the Untouchables of India, we are both pitied and mocked. We live our entire existence in misery in the shadows of society. Like the Untouchables scrape together a living on scraps of bread and contaminated water, getting by on the hope that in the next life, they will ascend the caste system to a more desirable position, Lions fans live on the brief moments of joy we’ve experienced in our lives as fans. Barry Sanders’ great runs, Mel Gray’s graceful kick returns and that one time the Lions won a playoff game. Hell, even one of our most joyous moments — Mike Utley giving the thumbs up as he was being wheeled off the field — is just simply tragic. When you find starting joy in misery, it’s time to seek counseling.

To be sure, Lions fans aren’t the only ones who have been miserable. Bengals fans had to deal with a rough stretch of years, for example, where the franchise was banking it’s future on Akili Smith. Most of us identify with a team early on, and stick with them through their failures and successes. Eastside is a life-long Cincinnati Bengals fan, and is now walking around with a permanent hard-on because of their success. No amount of heading to the bathroom with the Gap for Kids catalog can knock that thing down either, he’s just too excited after all these horrible years. So if we’re going with the comparison to the Hindu Caste System, Bengals fans would be members of the sudras (laborer) caste. Their normally miserable life is temporarily punctuated by moments of joy. They also have limited freedom of movement, like in 1989 when they had the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl to cheer on their team.

I mean, for crying out loud, the Lions last won a championship in 1957, just seven months after my mother was born. Dwight D. Eisenhower was still in office for God’s Fucking Sake!!!

In the Super Bowl era, the Lions have won just one playoff game. After beating Dallas at the Silverdome in 1992, they went to Washington for the NFC championship game and got their asses gift wrapped, put in a nice little basket with a bow on top and handed back to them by the Redskins. I remember my parents getting frustrated and leaving the house after the first quarter. They took my brother and I to the store, where I found a television to watch while they did their shopping. I was convinced that the Lions — my Lions — would come through for me. How couldn’t they go to Super Bowl, they were just too good! I’d grown up with seeing what the Lions did to my family members, but at 13, I had my Lions rite of passage. They had just enough success to make me buy into the “next year is our year” mentality. As Detroiters, we’ve all long since accepted the fact that the Lions suck, but we’re like Luke Skywalker, convinced that deep down, there’s some good inside Darth Vader. We’re just waiting for that day when they’ll turn on Matt Millen and throw him over the rail into the core of the Death Star.

That shimmer of “good” has been different for each generation. For my grandfather, it was Bobby Layne. For my father, Wayne Walker and Billy Simms. I grew up on Barry Sanders, Herman Moore and Chuck Spielman. And now, just as my father got frustrated with Andre Ware and Scott Mitchell, I’m throwing things at the television whenever I see Joey Harrington and Jeff Garcia. Frustration with the Lions is genetic, just like a proclivity to heart problems and colon cancer.