This is Seattle.

We’re not New York. Not Los Angeles. Not even Miami or Chicago. We’re America’s underdog. The forgotten metropolis. Crammed into the nosebleed section of the left coast. Where it rains a lot. Where coffee is constantly brewing. Where planes are made and apples are sliced. We’re overlooked and underappreciated.

The nation scoffs at us. They tend to forget that we even exist. When they mention us, it’s only to take jabs at the weather and the beverage of choice. Don’t act like you haven’t been gossiping behind our backs, America. We know how it is.

When it comes to sports, they treat us like a redheaded stepchild. They hijack our teams, tell us we aren’t supportive enough, put us amongst the worst sports cities in this great nation of ours, and occasionally slap the dreaded “mid-market” label upon us. The only mid-market we should be associated with is on the corner of First Avenue and Pike Street. We’re bigger than that. We’re better than that.

We’re the worst of the best, the best of the worst. A punch line with an area code. A needle away from being irrelevant.

We’re soggy, soaked, sorry, sub-par. We aren’t deserving of success. We aren’t respected for the accomplishments. Our victories are cheapened by the fact that we don’t “get it” and don’t know what winning really means.

This is Seattle. This is where we stand as a sports town. In America’s outhouse. We’re lepers. Loners. Losers.

And that’s why it’s time to gloat. Act like you’ve been there before, right? Wrong. According to them, we haven’t been there before and never will be. So suck on it, America. Because it’s time to pay homage to the Emerald City, the 206, the greatest city in the U.S.A., Seattle, Motherf**king, Washington.

You may not know this, but we have a professional football franchise. They just sh*t on last year’s Super Bowl champs. They took the worst regular season record for a division winner in league history into the playoffs and won a game they were supposed to lose. There are 32 franchises in the National Football League. By the time the Seahawks take the field next, only the fans of eight of those franchises will still have a pulse. Our pulse won’t just be beating, though. No. It’ll be racing. We’re like midgets on Red Bull. We go crazy for the postseason.

We have a college here in this town. The University of Washington. Surprisingly, it’s nowhere near the District of Columbia. Imagine that. Our college has a football program. They upset the Nebraska Cornhuskers in last week’s Holiday Bowl. Vegas cried when that happened. We’re perpetually out to bring tears to Sin City’s collective eyes. Oddsmakers hate us. I guess that means we beat the odds. Sexy.

Our college also has a basketball program. They’ve won six straight ballgames. They’re nationally ranked. They’re undefeated in Pac-10 conference play (Pac, short for Pacific, named after the Pacific Ocean, which is a larger body of water than the Mississippi River). You might not care right now. But it will matter in March. So don’t sleep on these guys. They’re a night terror waiting to happen.

In the past fortnight, these three teams have carried this city to one of the greatest two-week runs of athletic achievement in Seattle sports history. We’re on a seven-game winning streak. We’re taking on more than just opponents. We’re thwarting critics, naysayers, gamblers, sportswriters, talking heads, and haters. They might as well be motivators. Let the Cascades serve as our bulletin board. Tack the words of inspiration to Mount Rainier and let them loom in the distance.

We shouldn’t care what they say. We shouldn’t worry about everyone else. We should enjoy this for ourselves. We don’t need to tell the nation, we don’t need to tell the world.

F**k that.

Recognize, America. This is Seattle. And we’re kicking your ass right now.

P.S. Give us our NBA team back, dicks.