I haven’t written in a while, I know. August was one of those months I am pretending didn’t happen. But enough with that, onto the new!
I hate football. Really I do. When Hank Williams Jr. screams “Are you reaaaadddy for some foooottttbaalll!?” I hide in a corner and rock myself while repeating “It will be over in February, it will be over in February…”.
We have a lovely Sunday ritual where hubby prepares an utterly delicious chili in the crockpot and retreats to the basement to enjoy his man time. He’s working on indoctrinating our daughters into it too, and our oldest refers to football as “Daddy’s favorite show!”. Probably the only time football has been equated with Dora the Explorer. Usually I get to read a book or take a nap or get my toes made pretty. Everybody wins!
I have tried to like football- I’ve watched games with my husband and tried to make erudite observations. I’ll tell you the story of the one time I uttered a declarative statement quite relevant to the sport and he responded with a non-sequiter “I don’t know” BECAUSE HE WASN’T LISTENING another time. I have gotten to the point where I can appreciate a well-executed play, and really who doesn’t like to say “flea flicker” in the context of polite conversation?
But still, love of football eludes me.
At least in baseball I can appreciate the handsomeness of certain players. In football they are all helmets and pads. Are we even sure there are actual people in there and not those annoying Fox robots that jump around like idiots during commercial breaks? I also don’t care for the brutality of the sport- those guys go out there to try and kill each other in order to get a ball onto a particular piece of grass. And we pay them exorbitantly for it. And cheer them on. While we eat nachos and drink beer. It is like we are all Joaquin Phoenix’s icky emperor in Gladiator minus the creepy sister-love and thumbs up/thumbs down power.
For a while I was able to hold out hope that the strike would continue and our Sundays could be spent going to Home Depot to pick out wallpaper and maybe Bed Bath and Beyond (only if we have time). There could be relaxed brunches were my children wear dresses and keep pigtails in their hair while using knives and forks like civilized human beings and no food ends up on the floor. That is a pipe dream to be sure, but billionaires fighting with millionaires over who gets how much of the fans’ money was a dirty reality.
And then there is fantasy football. It has ruined everything. There was one time when I sat with my husband and asked what team we are rooting for. Okay, the Saints- great, who can’t get behind New Orleans? Yay Reggie Bush! Yay Drew Brees! Wait- yay guy on the other team??
And then he uttered the following death knell for my interest in football:
“He’s on my fantasy team. So I want him to do well but I also need New Orleans to do well because they are my defense so really we’re rooting for New Orleans but also that one wide receiver on the Giants.”
I believe this is when I got up, went upstairs and took a nap.
Wake me up when the chili is ready. Or even better, when college basketball starts.
Chili is (no joke) the reason I first got into football about six years ago. I liked the ritual of making food with a lot of cheese, having friends over, and decadently not leaving the living room for hours every Sunday. It was only after a few seasons of this that I started to pay attention to the sport and found it much more complex and interesting than the turf warfare I originally thought it would be. (That, and quarterbacks tend to be pretty cute.)
ReplyDelete-- M.J.