Selfish.

My good friend and fellow Indianapolis Colts fan – I’ll call her Burma – just informed me that she cannot watch the Colts vs. Ravens Divisional Round Playoffs this Saturday, because she has to attend a wedding that day.

The degree of narcissism required to schedule your wedding during the fourth most important event of the entire year – following my birthday, Superbowl, and Wrestlemania – appalls me down to the fingerprints at the end of my fingertips.

Before you say, “Whatever, bitch, people don't care that much about football,” let me hit you with a few numbers.

Let’s take the NY Jets vs. Cincinnati Bengals Wildcard game last Saturday. That game received 16.9 rating – which means that 16.9% of all households with televisions, not just the ones watching TV, were watching the game. This is in contrast with a typical Saturday. Without football, the highest rated show Saturday show is America's Most Wanted, which only gets about 1.5%, depending on who is being wanted.

If 17% of people with TVs, many whom wouldn't even be watching TV on a Saturday if there was no football, tuned into two mediocre, lucked-into-a-playoff-spot teams play, how many would you guess will tune into Colts vs. Ravens – an epic battle between the NFL’s best offense and its hardest hitting defense? Let’s conservatively estimate 25%.

And unless the engaged pair are Amish, we can assume that everyone at the wedding have TVs. Which means that a quarter of the attendees want to watch the game but can’t because of the nuptials. You wouldn’t have your wedding on Passover, and Jews represent a much smaller percentage of the population than football fans.

Some of you are saying, “But Carol, American Idol gets about the same ratings – does that mean people can’t schedule their weddings during that?” And my answer is in three parts.

1) American Idols is lame, so it’s different.

2) An NFL playoff game isn’t some show you can just TiVo and enjoy the contrived entertainment at your leisure. It is a play-by-play, second-by-second, realtime event, that happens only once a year and upon which everything hinges.

3) Unlike the popular shows on TV, NFL viewers cross demographics, and represent a true vivisection of the American population. The age, income, gender, race, and other indicators match our national averages. So unless your wedding guestlist consists mainly of teenage girls, you wouldn’t be selfish to have it when American Idol is on.

So, to the future Mr. and Mrs. You Suck – after your marriage inevitably fails due to your shared selfishness, have your next wedding during baseball season.