HEAVEN – The quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, Kurt Warner, has believed for years that everything in his life, from working as a stock boy in a supermarket to marrying a frequent guest on the Jerry Springer Show and spawning enough kids to begin his own Crusade to the Holy Land, has been part of God’s plan. It was God, or his son and partner in business, Jesus, who drew up the blueprint that their humble servant, Warner, would rise from obscurity to win two MVPs and a Super Bowl under the Satanic direction of evil offensive genius, Mike Martz – with the catch being that Warner would have to maintain the same perpetual five o’clock shadow made fashionable by Don Johnson in the Eighties. Warner kept this belief even when he broke his thumb and wanted to scream, “God-dammit!” – as this injury initiated a long drought in his fortune, attributing it all to God’s plan for Kurt Warner. Now the divine strategy has ordered that he return to pigskin throwing glory, with the dead pig also playing a key role in the drama that features the qb being the second rated passer in the NFL.

Then, yesterday, God, with Jesus at his side at the podium, called a press conference to denounce any such nonsense that the Creator and Mover of the Known Universe has spent the better part of the last fifteen years calling in political favors to be used to, one, get Warner a job with the Hy-Vee Grocery Store in Iowa before his gaudy ascent into the NFL, and, two, to orchestrate the college draft that brought Eli Manning to the New York Giants that resulted in Warner going to the bench.

“Listen, you idiots,” said a cranky God, “I wanted Eli to go to the San Diego Chargers. The wife and I have a little place on Mission Beach, and I hate how Philip Rivers throws sidearm. It offends my sense of symmetry.”

“My father has a severe case of OCD,” interposed Jesus, leaning into the microphone.

“Please, son, can you say the same thing while standing on the other side of me.”

Jesus obeyed his father, though he had to repeat the whole sequence when he failed to use the same inflection on both the left- and right-hand side of God.

“And,” continued God, “I have never forgiven New York City for electing Ed Koch, who, if you remember, crucified my boy, Jesus.”

“But wasn’t that the Pharisees?” asked a bold reporter from The Village Voice.

“What’s the difference, you little shit?” snapped the All-Knowing One. “Anyway, the fact is I’ve had no time for Kurt Warner, not that I don’t appreciate his fawning worship of me, though I just found out about it couple days ago from my secretary. There’s been a lot going on within the family, as I still cannot get my uncombed white-maned head around this business of my son and Satan now being best friends. True, Satan used to be my number one lieutenant, but, well, you know the story of how he took some of my best people and set up his own shop across the nebula. Hey, maybe this guy, Kurt Warner, can go on a road trip with Jesus and the Dark Angel, say on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and the three of them can form a special bond while going through all kinds of zany adventures in modern Russia. There’s a divine plan for Kurt.”

It is reported that Kurt Warner, on hearing that his life has been nothing but random coincidence, and this on the heels of being informed that his IRA from the Hy-Vee is down to zero, has decided to shave his face.