I’ve only been here in Boston for, oh, a couple of decades. While I enjoyed the region’s collective delirium when the Red Sox finally reversed the curse, I’m an October fan, not a real one.

But my wife is a real fan, dating back pre-natally. She lives and dies with each Sox at bat. She would snarl and growl if a Yankees fan came anywhere near our house. As you can imagine, right now, there is no joy in our corner of Mudville.

Last week, our 8-year-old startled us with this phrase: “It’s a pre-2004 Red Sox nightmare!,” which would have been, oh, before he was born.

But of course, he’s right.

E.J. Graff writes on social-justice and human-rights issues, particularly discrimination and violence against women and children; marriage and family policy; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and the author of What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 1999, 2004).