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Me: Hi! I really want to thank you for taking the time to talk with us, and add what a personal honour it is for me to be speaking to a woman with with such a dizzying literary capacity. You are truly one of the greatest writers in the entire world.

Atwood: That’s very sweet of you, thank you.

Me: I think an awful lot of people would be surprised to learn that you played Fantasy Baseball.

Can you tell us here at The Knuckler how you got into it?

Atwood: As people may or may not know, I’ve always been very interested in speculative fiction, and when I heard about Fantasy Baseball, I thought it was in the same vein. You know, like Fantasy Literature, so I looked in to it. Alas, it was not, but I became fascinated by it and all the marginalized, impotent men that play it so obsessively. It’s role playing, really, where all these limited, in many cases arrested men, bond together and pretend that they’re something much more powerful than they are in the ordinary dirt of their relentlessly disappointing lives.

It’s like a religion for them, I think, a little treehouse they can retreat to and act as supreme ruler of a secular male kingdom. I have always thought that without Fantasy Baseball there would probably be an awful lot more mass shootings. Anyway, I got involved in order to research a character for one of my books and have been playing ever since.

Me: Oh.

Atwood: And I have to say, I’ve done very, very well.

Me: Good for you.

Atwood: I’m sorry, are you being sarcastic?

Me: Oh no, a marginalized, impotent shooter-type such as myself wouldn’t have a clue how to do that!

Atwood: I see.

Me: I guess you’ve just been a very lucky player!

Atwood: Lucky?

Me: Plucky. A very plucky player.

Atwood: Really?

Me: Well, let’s not get side-tracked with semantics here. So, I’m sure all of The Knuckler’s readers would love to hear what your Fantasy Baseball team is called!

Atwood: The Blind Assassins.

Me: Oh.

Atwood: Mister Murray, I have to say, you sound disappointed.

Me: Well, coming from a “literary genius” you’d expect something a little more imaginative and eloquent. It seems lazy and nakedly self-promotional to name your team after one of your own books, especially if it wasn’t good enough to be an Oprah Pick or made into a movie.

Atwood: What is your team called?

Me: Mike’s Mashers.

Atwood: That’s very clever. How are they doing this year?

Me: They’ve been savaged by injuries I’m afraid, so it looks like I’ll be rebuilding again.

Atwood: Again, eh? So, how long have you been playing Fantasy Baseball?

Me: I don’t know, 25 years?

Atwood: Have you ever won?

Me: Ha, ha, ha! Have I ever won? What a funny question! Let me tell you, I’ve more than held my own.

Atwood: But have you ever won? Have you ever finished in first place? Have you tasted the sort of victory that for a moment erases all those memories of being the last pick, of being mocked for throwing like a girl, of all those many, many times of being over-looked by the more talented and beautiful?

Have you ever had your revenge, Mister Murray?

Unfortunately, I suffered an asthma attack at this point during the interview and we had to suspend our chat.

Rachelle, my wife, had to work and was unable to make it. These are the text messages that she sent me over the course of the evening:

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Rachelle: Pickle, tell me, how’s dinner going?

Rachelle: Really? You’re giving it a C minus, maybe a D?

Rachelle: That’s strange.

Rachelle: Really? You’ve lost a lot of respect for the family?

Rachelle: Did they call you out for bringing half a bottle of wine again?

Rachelle: You have to stop doing that. It’s embarrassing!

Rachelle: It is.

Rachelle: No, I’m not embarrassing, you’re embarrassing.

Rachelle: Oh, I think I know what happened.

Rachelle: What did you wear out?

Rachelle: You wore your black turtleneck and that jacket, didn’t you?

Rachelle: I know you think it makes you look like Carl Sagan.

Rachelle: I know.

Rachelle: But I still don’t understand why you think that’s a good thing.

Rachelle: Look, I don’t hate the cosmos.

Rachelle: Or space exploration.

Rachelle: Just bad clothes.

Rachelle: Now come on, just tell me what happened.

Rachelle: Oh, sweet Jesus that’s hilarious!!

Rachelle: So, just before everybody was about to start dinner, Marston said, “Edgy Pastor, would you please lead us in grace?”

Rachelle: I love that girl.

Rachelle: No, she’s not full of herself.

Rachelle: She’s so clever, and she’s right, when you wear that outfit you do look like an edgy Pastor.

Rachelle: Yes, you do.

Rachelle: Yes, like some white dad who’s going to rap Genesis or something.

Rachelle: Oh honey, I would never get in the way of your relationship with God!!

Rachelle: There’s more?

Rachelle: Hannah said, “It looks like a jacket you mother might have bought you.”

Rachelle: It’s like that girl is my daughter.

Rachelle: And then she added, “At a store called For Your Son.”

Rachelle: “For Your Adult Son.”

Rachelle: Oh Lord!!! Tears are streaming out of my eyes I am laughing so hard!

Rachelle: And then Marston said, “And she paid for it with a coupon she clipped from a newspaper?”

Rachelle: Oh Pickle, you really are defenceless in the face of those girls!

Rachelle: So what did you do?

Rachelle: Oh.

Rachelle: Do you think that was a good idea?

Rachelle: Well, it’s just if you’re always pretending to have an asthma attack, people might not be very responsive when you actually do, that’s all.

Rachelle: See? I told you!

Rachelle: That is just too funny, I love that they all held hands and prayed for the edgy Pastor during your fake asthma attack!

Rachelle: Did you end up saying grace?

Rachelle: Well, I think you should have embraced the persona and rapped it!

Rachelle: Yes, your life is nothing but a series of missed opportunities.

Rachelle: Oh, I’ve got to go, work calls!

Rachelle: Well, my edgy, little Pastor, I’ll see you in two hours, may you walk with the Lord!

This is the battle that ensued:

Greasy, loner neighbour: U DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOOK AFTER A DOG

Me: YOUR MAN BUN IS VERY BRAVE.

Greasy, loner neighbour: AT LEAST I HAVE HAIR

Me: YOU’RE SHAPED LIKE A PEAR & WE CALL YOU CINNABON

Greasy, loner neighbour: YOU LOOK LIKE MR. BURNS

Me: HAVE GONE OFF MY MEDS. FEEL UNPREDICTABLE

Greasy, loner neighbour: ADVANCED TRAINING IN NGUNI STICK FIGHTING. NOT SCARED

Me: VIDEO GAMES DON’T COUNT

Greasy, loner neighbour: YOU’RE ON DISABILITY, RIGHT?

Me: YOU LOOK SHARP IN YOUR BEST BUY T-SHIRT, CINNABON.

Greasy, loner neighbour: U LOOK WEAK & ALWAYS SEE YOU IN HOUSECOAT. CREEPY

Me: ALLERGIC TO GRAINS AND HAVE ASTHMA. WHY I KEEP GUNS

Greasy, loner neighbour: JUST KEEP YOUR DOG QUIET, OK?

Me: NO

Greasy, loner neighbour: WILL CALL ANIMAL SERVICES

Me: THEN WE WILL STICK FIGHT, BUT I WILL HAVE GUNS