“Daisy, you should have had a second cup of Starbucks coffee!”

I was greeted with this after a nearly sleepless night. Eating the Opponent — well, I’ll start with Sunday’s menu.

On Sunday, Iron Chef Chuck cooked up a fabulous salmon dish with a crab stuffing on top. With sides made from apples and potatoes, our Eating the Opponent: Seattle meal was perfect. Almost perfect.

Monday afternoon we (a vanload of teachers) took a small detour off the highway on our way home from a field trip. One of my coworkers pulled up his smart phone and found the nearest Starbucks for me. Why? People, people, Starbucks coffee, a quintessential Seattle product, was part of the plan for “Eating the Opponent.” This nice young teacher, a native of Cleveland and a Browns fan, guided us to Starbucks, where I treated myself to a Pumpkin Spice Latte in honor of the occasion.

Readers, if you didn’t watch the game, I’m sure you heard about it. I’m sure you saw replays of the final play, one of many botched calls by the replacement referees, and the disastrous results.

Back to the beginning. My coworkers first suggested that a second helping of Eating the Opponent might have helped. However, it wasn’t the Seahawks who beat Aaron Rodgers and Crew. It wasn’t the eleven men on the field or the mythical Twelfth Man, as they call their fans.

The replacement referees beat the Green Bay Packers.

So how does a family go about Eating the Opponent when the opponent isn’t the other team and the opponent has no home field?

My friendly cubicle neighbor suggested something stinky– limburger cheese –to represent the stinky job the officials had done. Another added sauerkraut to the list. Chuck sent me an email suggesting zebra burgers and vanilla-chocolate swirl pudding.

With that, readers, I need to stop. The NFL lockout of their officials is anything but a joke. The replacement refs are in a no-win situation in more ways than one. The more mistakes, the more doubts, and the more anger from players and coaches and fans. If the league is serious about maintaining any integrity to the 2012 season, they’ll negotiate now and negotiate quickly, before their substitutes in black and white get eaten alive.