Holy shit that was fun.

Well, it was fun, anyway. Right up until Mike Triplett, Brian Allee-Walsh, Pete Finney and Message Board Guy stepped to the soapbox yet again to lecture us on how critically important it is that we resist the urge to take a moment’s joy out of the Saints’ afternoon-long Charlie Murphy treatment of the Raiders.

And it’s a damn good thing they did, because I had totally forgotten that August is a damn liar, preseason games don’t count in the standings, the Raiders blow, and my personal favorite, the fact that Detroit went 4-0 in preseason last year. NOOOOO!!!! Clearly we’re totally screwed if the Saints win Thursday night against the Dolphins. Come on, Coach Payton, take a dive! Not that it really matters I guess, because sooner or later it’s all gonna go to shit anyway.

After all this time, I still haven’t figured out why some people think it’s so fucking important for fans to keep their game faces on. Don’t get too cocky. Curb your enthusiasm. Keep it in perspective. Don’t eat the cheese. Resist the urge to so much as crack a smile until Sean Payton is hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.

My question is: Or else what? What misfortune is gonna befall me (or, worse yet, the team) if I dare to get my hopes up? What difference does it make? And why do you give a shit?

I mean, Brian Allee-Walsh’s came off less like a lecture (to his credit) and more like a desperate plea. But why? Is it some naive hope that if by some chance the Saints disappoint again, the masses won’t be quite so insufferably petulant and manic for having kept their expectations in check to begin with?

Yeah, good luck with that. I’m sure it’ll make all the difference.

Look, it’s preseason. I get it. Until Pete Finney is successful in his effort to get the league to count preseason wins toward the standings, as long as we don’t forget about them, even a 45-7 pantsing of the Raiders isn’t going to mean jack in a couple of weeks. I get it. Guess what? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.

Quit lecturing me ad infinitum about how I ought to approach being a fan. If you want to be calm and stoic and wear your wait and see attitude like a badge of honor, then more power to you. But while we’re reminding one another what does and doesn’t matter, let me take this opportunity to remind you that if the Saints do eventually crash and burn, the fact that you knew it all along and didn’t get sucked in isn’t gonna make it any better.

That is, unless the prospect of being able to say in December, "See? I tried to tell ya. If you were as smart as I am and had listened to me back in August, you wouldn’t be so disappointed right now. Ha!" gives you a huge boner. Fortunately for us, we already know that it does, and that that’s what this is all really about in the first place.

Of course, Ralph already expressed these sentiments far more eloquently in his sublime Sunday column. How far we’ve come. Seems like only yesterday, Ralph was bringing the hammer down upon "Black and Gold pom-pom waving, don’t be negative, and the Saints season is going to be all lollipops and sunshine fans." Now this is change I can believe in.

If my own sense of self-worth were as inflated as Message Board Guy’s, I’d do what he does every time someone in the legitimate media expresses a sentiment he remembers having once himself spewed forth onto the internet, and take credit for it. "Dude must be reading my posts, because I’ve been saying this for months." Fortunately for me, I’m not quite that big a douchebag. Instead, I’ll just tip my hat and hope that Ralph isn’t getting the mountains of shit heaped upon him that I usually get from our friendly neighborhood perpetually-miserable asshole "realists."

Meantime, the important part isn’t whether or not fans are getting "too excited" based on a couple of "meaningless exhibition" games. The important part is whether what we’ve been seeing is real, or whether it’s some kind of beautiful mirage.

I’d assert that it’s the former. And I’d ask, aside from the largely irrelevant fact that the games don’t count, what exactly would indicate to you that it’s more likely to be the latter?

It can’t be because Cincinnati and Houston are bad, because they’re not. Sure, they’re not exactly New England and Pittsburgh, but it’s not like they’re in Detroit’s and Oakland’s league either. Oakland is a steaming pile, sure, but the Saints were up by 31 at halftime for crying out loud. You’d have a point if the Saints hadn’t absolutely Ike Turnered their asses.

It can’t be because their opponents have been holding out their best players. The Saints have seen Carson Palmer, Chad Ochocinco, Chris Henry, Matt Schaub, Andre Johnson, Steve Slaton, Chris Brown, Mario Williams, and whoever supposedly qualifies as Oakland’s "best"… I don’t know… Darren McFadden I guess. Fabulous Jeff? In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s the Saints who have been without Lance Moore, Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, Tracy Porter, Jammal Brown, Charles Grant and Scotty Badass at various times during the preseason.

It can’t be because the opponents aren’t trying. Sure, they might not be "gameplanning" per se, as in a regular season game (although Oakland claimed that they did, actually.) But neither are the Saints. And while I don’t doubt for a second that opposing coaches aren’t losing any sleep over the final score of a preseason game (with the possible exception of Tom Cable,) the players certainly aren’t going out there trying to get the shit kicked out of them.

It can’t be because the Saints have been benefitting from any particularly lucky bounces, fluke occurrences, etc. It can’t be because the sample size is too small, we’re not talking about just one particularly pretty single-game performance. We’re three games in at this point, and in two of them, the Saints have had double-digit leads at halftime.

And it damn sure can’t be because other teams in other years have gone out and looked great in the preseason, only to fall flat on their asses in the regular season. Because that kind of specious, anecdotal bullshit is completely irrelevant. This just in: the Saints aren’t Detroit and this isn’t 2008.

To borrow one of Message Board Guy’s favorite go-to platitudes whenever someone trots out a stat he doesn’t like, "Watch the games!" What exactly have you been seeing that leads you to believe that this isn’t real? That the Saints are significantly not-as-good-as-they’ve-looked?

Because whatever it is, I’m certainly not seeing it. I’m sure Mr. Realist would chalk that up to some schmutz on my black & gold glasses. But as far as I can tell, that and "it’s preseason" is about all he has with which to rebut. And that’s not nearly enough.

Of course, there’s also always the old standby: "It’s the Saints! They’ve broken my heart too many times!" And to that, I say touche. Hey, I’ve been guilty of trotting that one out myself. Sometimes it’s hard not to. But it must be used sparingly (rather than incessantly) lest you come off like douchebag Red Sox fans of old, or Cubs fans, who seem to revel in the opportunity to use their fanhood as a vehicle to bitch and moan about how rough they’ve got it. And Long-Suffering Crying Guy is almost as big a douchebag as Front-Running Bandwagon Guy.

There’s a time and place to wallow in your suffering. That time and place is… when you’re actually suffering. Not when your team is looking an awful lot like they might very well be the best damn team in the league.

But hey, if curling up in a fetal position and waiting for the other shoe to drop does it for ya, then by all means. The rest of us will be out here in the sunshine, enjoying the good times for however long they last.

And we ain’t about to apologize for it either.