So, you know, try not to be so cynical.
Here we lurk hours and soon minutes from the transfer window hitting the sill, and Carlos Tevez remains marooned.
Humanity has made a fine little tweak. Good has triumphed over not so good. Enough has remained enough.
Thinking cynically last early autumn, the 27 year old would be elsewhere by now, and probably even somewhere plum.
He would be scoring goals, wreaking booming cheers, soaking in the adulation that comes with his invaluableness to the Earth.
He might even get the privilege of living in Paris, and even if it would have gone wasted on him, well, he apparently went and messed that up, too.
It turns out, for now, that now and then people might value other things over football goals, and that those people might even include a considerable majority of fans.
You actually can forgive Tevez in that nothing in his past, nothing much in recent athletic world history, would have informed him of anything but his indispensability to life.
After all, he hardly ran solo in the grand diva derby. In a more perfect football world, a cluster of ungrateful others could have joined him on that flight to Buenos Aires, whereupon all could have proceeded on to Antarctica, preferably behind a mountain.
He just happened to be the person who found the end of a fuse that did seem boundless. Or who might have found the end, with hours still to go. But try not to be so cynical.
Thinking realistically last autumn, the Tevez saga did figure to hover above Manchester City's season, bidding for the distraction hall of fame.
And we all still chatter about it months on, and if a jet with him aboard does land in the north-west, news channels might just cover it live.
But Manchester City have got 22/38ths of the way through the season still in first place, with the threats bubbling below freighted with questions.
And if anything, the club seem to have some underlying comprehension that the Tevez distraction might trump the season in long-term importance. Some fret as if this is some one-time title shot. Really?
Still, here on January 31, it's possible to guess a scenario in which the attack wanes in springtime heat, murmurs for Tevez gather, truce develops, diva returns, goals ensue, cheers follow, and his renowned adviser sails on after this inept patch.
But try not to be so cynical.
