In the spirit of the peaceful and charitable holiday season coming up (with apologies to Steve Martin), I would like to have just one wish for the upcoming game of the Bengals and the Steelers. My one wish would be for all the players to join hands and sing together in the spirit of harmony and peace. If I could have just two wishes, the first would be about the players singing, and the second would be that Ben Roethlisburger would throw an interception. Just one, that’s all.

If I could have three wishes, the first would be, of course, the players and the singing in harmony, the second would be the interception, and the third would an unspecified Steelers player to get leveled by a Bengals player. Nothing life threatening. That wouldn’t be nice. I wouldn’t mind possibly hearing some bone crunching. Not too loud, like a snap, because that would mean a broken bone, but a crunchy, gravelly sound. And a grimace on his face. That would be nice. I wouldn’t be angry if it were Hines Ward, but I’m not calling out anyone here.

If I could have FOUR wishes, first would be the crap about the singing, second the three or four interceptions and maybe a fumble or two, third would be a bone-jarring hit that would be felt by subsequent generations of his family and the families of the coaching staff, and the fourth would be about 350 passing yards and 3 TDs by Carson Palmer along with 137 yards rushing and 2 TDs by Cedric Benson. Okay, maybe that should be the first wish, because, really, who expects the players to get together and sing? So I guess the first would be all the touchdowns and a shut out by the Bengals defense, the second would be turnovers galore, third, really, just an all-out beat down of one (Ward) of the players that would put him on the brink of death, but not all the way because Hines should suffer the ignominy of losing to the Bengals twice in the same season, and fourth that singing crap, which will probably not happen anyway, so I guess I’ll just ask for a cool million dollars, because that would be nice.

So happy upcoming holidays to everyone, and may the Bengals beat the Steelers on Sunday!