Yes, life really does go on without NFL

Monday was the first business day of the rest of the NFL's life.

Somehow I was able to sleep well, wake up, brush my teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, read the newspaper, cruise the Internet, watch a “Perry Mason” rerun and generally navigate my normal daily routine.

How insensitive of the planet to keep spinning and of me to not feel the pain of the NFL's work stoppage.

Nothing … numb.

I guess I just won't allow myself to be held hostage by another silly labor dispute in sports.

NFL negotiations broke down late last week, players decertified their union, and owners locked them out.

Ah, but football was only one of the “major breaking stories” dominating the 24-hour news cycle.

On the left side of my TV's split screen was the earthquake/tsunami in Japan. On the right side was the NFL labor dispute.

I was proud of myself for recognizing that the former was something to care about and the latter was something to care about that doesn't matter.

Now, make no mistake: The NFL's inconveniences could translate into hardships for others if games are canceled.

Vendors, ticket-takers, parking-lot attendants, shop owners near stadiums and hospitality workers all will be hurt.

Sometimes they're referred as “the little people,” but they're really “the real people” in this situation.

Most frustrating is that what winds up happening in the NFL, and how long it takes to happen, is out of the control of these innocents who become collateral damage. They are at the mercy of affluent owners and players who have trouble identifying with common folk anymore.

To be fighting over money in one of America's few prospering industries is insensitive enough to be reprehensible.

Personally, as a sports fan and sports writer I have been to the sports labor dentist enough to know the drill by now. Wake me when this one is over.

Actually, I was trying over the weekend to pinpoint which sports work stoppage prompted my current indifference.

Was it the 1981 baseball strike that became the first I witnessed up close? Was it the NFL strike of '82 or the one in '87? Was it the one that squandered the 1994 World Series? Was it the one that cost the NHL an entire season?

More specifically, maybe it was watching NFL replacement games or replacement players reporting to baseball spring training or the NHL actually believing it was important enough to be missed in very many places in the United States.

No, it couldn't have been that last one because something memorable occurred earlier.

A college student e-mailed me for assistance during the early 2000s. In the process of our e-banter he mentioned the NBA lockout that shortened the 1998-99 season.

I e-mailed him back saying he was mistaken and “the NBA didn't have a work stoppage.”

It escaped my memory that the league had been out.

Hopefully I won't remember this NFL nonsense either, whenever and however it ends, whether it's this week or next year or sometime in between or later or even never.

In the meantime, the rest of us will continue worrying about keeping our own jobs in a precarious global economy.

Of course, even that will be better than being caught in an earthquake/tsunami.

It's all relative, you know.