There has been little more ludicrous in America than the “replacement” NFL refs, hard as that is to imagine in a nation that has been home to both the Kardashians and the “campaign” of Michele Bachman.

Remember that?

Me, neither.

Well, except that her husband (yeah, somebody married her) had some high-tech, hyper-mumbo-jumbo, wiz-bang plan to convert gay people into slick heterosexual robots that would produce more cars than China and China combined.

Remember the good old days before replacement refs?

At one point, the replacements did seem to be pretty much in place — but then, my doorknobs are in place, and they are probably just as knowledgeable about NFL rules as the replacements.

Which would put my doorknobs pretty much in the same category as Mitt Romney. Except that my doorknobs are not 8 points behind in the polls.

OK, when I wrote that, the replacement NFL referees seemed like oak trees or maple trees. Turns out, now they seem like oak leaves or maple leaves — turning into dust around our feet, faint memories in a culture that doesn’t much value memories. Or memory.

So maybe the replacement refs can find jobs with the Boston Red Sox, who seem to specialize in employing people who don’t know a thing about what they’re doing.

Take Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine, for instance. Anybody. Please. He’d make a perfect replacement ref: continually mistaken, clueless about the rules or any other version of reality, and utterly obstinate in insisting that his meager slice of the universe fully describes the universe at large.

He sounds like a better running mate for Mitt Romney than Paul Ryan, who does pretty much the same thing, only without quite the vinegar. (Which sounds rather like Terry Branstad.)

You might wonder why the universe is still at large, despite the best efforts of law enforcement.

Well, the universe is quite cagey, even cagier than legendary composer John Cage, who pretty much set the definitions for cagey that legendary pianist and composer Thelonius Monk forgot to set. You can’t blame Monk; he nodded off once or twice after “Ruby My Dear.”

Actually, Bobby V. would make a better running mate for the Good Ship Mitt than Paul Ryan. For one thing, he could out-prickly (yes, Virginia, I know that’s not a word, just as there’s no — SPOILER ALERT, Cub fans — Santa Claus, and in any case, his name is not Theo) Joe Biden in a debate.

So, Mitt, you could have saved Boston fans two months of anguish had you tapped Bobby for your VP. Yes, I know, you don’t much care for Boston fans, even though you were once governor of the state and signed Romneycare into law (which is Obamacare in everything but its name). We can tell you don’t care about Sox fans from your waxing eloquent (yes, I know you’re not familiar with those two words) about the Sox winning the Super Bowl.

Also, Bobby V. is smart enough (yeah, I know, Red Sox fans, it’s been a bit difficult to tell, just from his track record this season, that Bobby is smart) that he wouldn’t smack down President Obama for walking away from the Simpson-Bowles budget plan when he himself had walked away from it.

Yes. Ryan was on the Simpson-Bowles Commission, and he voted against sending its budget-cutting plan to Congress, and he was joined by enough panel members that the plan was not sent to Congress. So it’s maybe a bit hypocritical to criticize Obama for not supporting the plan.

(“Maybe a bit”? How about wallowing in hypocrisy?)

Oh, well. Ryan’s from Wisconsin. They know something about wallowing up there.

Say, you know, now that the replacement refs have some time on their hands, maybe they could run for president.

I mean, they already saved the NFL.