How I Spent April 19th, 2009 or How I Survived the FA Cup Semi Final

Nearly 48 hours removed from Sunday's FA Cup semifinal between my beloved Everton and Manchester United, I've still got a smile on my face. For over two hours on Sunday I gasped on every shot, cringed on every tackle and roared my general displeasure for Mike Riley...all alone in the sanctity of my home. I probably hurt my TV's feelings with my loud, foul mouthed verbal explosions and I know for a fact I freaked out my cats. After 90 minutes I was hoarse and pretty tired, the idea of 30 more minutes of action was not what I had in mind for my Sunday afternoon. As extra time moved along and came to a close with the score still nil-nil, it seemed like a trip to the FA Cup final would be decided by the most cruel and unusual method ever created...The PK, the ultimate in torture for the footy fan. It's truly no way to decide a match but an the damnable things are an unfortunate necessity less teams play all night and collapse from exhaustion.

As the team's prepared, I called my friend Scott, the one man who would truly understand what I was going through. He answered the phone in the only way he could, "Are you ok?" My tired and ragged voice forced out a response, "No"...Scott laughed. He put me on speaker phone for all at his home to enjoy what would be either a glorious moment of emotional spectacle or me being reduced to a sobbing exhausted mess.

Tim Cahill approached the ball to begin the torture, no problem I thought, our Aussie wunderkind is the perfect man to start us off on the right foot. As I watched the ball fly high over the cross bar, my heart stopped. I turned away from my television, striking the door of my room with my head, opening a small cut in my hairline. As a slight trickle of blood came down my forehead, I forced myself to watch as Dimitar Berbatov addressed the ball. As the Bulgarian stumbled like a drunken sailor toward the ball, I knew deep down Everton would been given a reprieve. As the feet of Tim Howard kicked the shot away, hope and joy can flooding back in, I began singing the Tim Howard says F*ck You Song as full volume, further damaging what little voice I had left. As Scott and others cackled at my insanity over the phone, Leighton Baines buried his attempt giving Everton the 1-0 advantage.

Surely this was going to happen. With all the injuries and issues the Toffees had faced since last season came to a close, this had to be our moment. Clearly to all who witnessed the moment, Tim Howard agreed with my sentiments, and once again came out of the phone booth, Superman cape equipped, swatting away the shot of Rio Ferdinand. My sanity began to crack. Captain Phil took care of business and it was 2-0...surely it was our time, there is no way Everton will give this back. Vidic, Vaughan and Anderson all scored and I was nearly delirious. 3-2 up, if Phil Jagielka scored the match was over and our trip back to Wembley booked. I was laying on my floor, pounding my fist and shouting as if Jags would hear me thousands of miles away.

The final moments went in slow motion...Jagielka struck the ball and an eternity passed before it struck the back on the net. I erupted with shouts of joy, jumping up and down, celebrating by myself the joy brought forth unto me by my beloved football club. Tears of joy and exhaustion were shed, it took damn near an hour to calm myself down and get my heart rate under control...and this was only the semi final. The next day my chest and arms hurt from the tension, stress and celebration, but it was all worth it. My team is in the FA Cup final and I've got to go through all this again...

If Everton can defeat Chelsea at the end of May, it might be prudent to have a defibrillator on stand by just in case.