So I got an e-mail from my favorite wacky local art-goodies store, Collage. And it announced that they are having a super! incredible! "shopping-mall-proportion!" sale in tandem with several other local indie stores. Awesome! Swell! Let me grab my wallet!
But wait a minute. When is this event scheduled?
On Superbowl Freakin' Sunday, that's when. Right. During. The game.
Hello, Collagians! Don't you know that that's like scheduling a big sale on CHRISTMAS? Just because I'm female, incorrigibly non-athletic and generally divorced from all things Middle American doesn't mean I don't like to settle down on the couch (well, bed... we have no TV in our living room) of a weekend and get my game on.
Yes! I love watching football. I love marveling over the sheer size of the linebackers, swooning over the high-school handsome quarterbacks (though my favorite QBs are all... well, rather less than handsome), deciphering the obscenities the coaches are barking into their headsets, imitating the bizarre end-zone antics of the receivers (flinging the ball into the play clock? srsly?), eating Cheesy Beer Squares (neither cheesy, nor beer, nor a square. Discuss.), having Jim explain to me the more arcane ins and outs of the official rules, flinging around the jargon like I know what I'm talking about (ask me about two-point conversions!), yelling "GO PACK GO!" at appropriate and inappropriate moments, yelling "TOUCHDOWN [WHOMEVER JIM'S ROOTING AGAINST]!" whenever possible, laughing at the dorky signs the fans hold up, commenting on the clever and less-so commercials...
...yeah, basically I like everything there is to the art of watching football on TV.
And it never fails to astonish me how people get all snootier-than-thou about their chosen hobby of not watching sports. "Oh. Football. You mean American football?" (sniff) "I don't know if that even really counts as a sport." Or just the cut-dead "I don't follow sports."
Well, la-dee-freakin'-da for you, Petunia Polopants. I'm so glad you're too refined, too special to see the fun in (boozily) yelling exhortations at a bunch of three-inch-tall players (yeah, we've got a little TV) who can't freakin' hear you anyway. Or too classy to want to waste your time in a sports bar with a bunch of other people (some of whom may even be wearing jerseys!) boozily yelling exhortations. But don't harsh my mellow, huh? I mean, I really couldn't care less if you want to spend your Sundays watching lacrosse or playing table tennis or crocheting afghans or sorting buttons or what have you.
But spending our weekends during the season wrapped up in football... especially during playoffs, for heaven's sake!... is as close as our family comes to anything resembling Religious Ritual. And you gotta respect my religion, man, and I gotta get all cranky and uptight if you don't accommodate me by scheduling your sales in such a way as to allow me to fulfill my religious obligations and still attend. 'Cause it's the American way.
(Go Pack Go!!!)
I am a NFL closet junkie. I Love it. When I was a little girl my job used to be following my daddy around with a little plastic container. When he would fling the remote ( as he would inevitably do every sunday ) I would pick up the pieces and take them to my mother who would silently try to re-position them again. If not, she would hop in the car to immediately go buy a new one, and this was back in the late 80's when tv remotes were slightly more scarce than now.
Ah memories.
Posted by: Summer | January 19, 2008 at 03:32 PM
While my *great* love is baseball, I am coming to enjoy watching football more and more, and especially as we approach the Super Bowl.
The store sounds cool, though.
Posted by: Mimi | January 19, 2008 at 03:53 PM
Bwahahaha! Something for the non-sports fanatics among us! Perhaps I'll stop by Collage! Oh, yeah, we have to go to a Superbowl party because it's hosted by a parishioner....gad, I hate the violence of football. Maybe I'll be "sick" that day. ;-)
Of course, we could do Collage beforehand, and then those who don't care to watch can have something to do!
Posted by: Elizabeth | January 21, 2008 at 07:30 PM