Monday, September 15, 2008

Football Circus by Suzanne Macpherson



If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead. Erma Bombeck


And so it begins. I’ve seen worse, mostly in television sitcoms and movies. Jerry McGuire comes to mind. Phrases like “use your inside voice, honey,” comes to mind, if my husband could actually hear me over his own bellowing.
I do have to loudly applaud the person that invented wireless headphones. Kudo’s for making all that static football background noise funnel into my husband’s ears instead of my entire house, although he does look like a complete lunatic screaming at a silent television. Oh wait, he is a complete lunatic- from September to whenever football season ends. Lunatic.

Can they hear you yet, honey?

I tried, I really did. The closest I came was when one of my sons played freshman football. I love fall, I love all that traditional stuff, you know, plaid blankets, warm sweaters, thermos of coffee, little bit of whiskey in there, okay just kidding. Rah Rah Rah! Freshman football is hilarious. It’s like watching circus clowns. No matter how serious they try to get about it, there are three good kids on the team and the rest are Bozo’s. My kids definitely had a red rubber nose under his helmet and I think I saw some rainbow hair sticking out. And after years of little league where the games take an average of five hours, football was a cinch!

So when my husband took us to a college game I figured it would be fun-- like a circus right? Well guess what? When those clowns grow up they are still running around the field with this ball trying to get it over the line and its just as stupid as it was when they were freshman but now they take it way way seriously! At that point I knew that football would not be something I shared with my husband.

I’ve learned that there are usually great movies on Sundays (I just finished watching Along Came as Spider-wow.) My daughter and I do lots of bonding while the guys do football, and Monday nights I signed up for the professional choir in our area while my daughter is taking tap lessons. Obviously both of us have learned to escape the seasonal insanity known as football season! I know plenty of women who love football, but I’m sorry to say, I’m not in that club. I seem to remember a movie with Lauren Bacall about her sports reporter husband married in a whirlwind romance called Designing Women: His world was all about guys and dolls, her world was all about gowns and glamor! Oh ya, that's me, glamor gal.

See you for chick cocktails at 5 on any given Monday during football season!

4 comments:

Jenny Gardiner said...

I'm front and center in line for your Monday night cocktails!
I've long loathed the noise of televised sports, particularly football. HATE IT! (Though the somber English-accented golf announcers make my skin crawl as well, even though normally I'm a sucker for a British accent).
Only thing good about live football games are tailgates LOL

Kalynne Pudner said...

What do you mean, "just kidding" about the whiskey in the thermos?

Suzanne Macpherson said...

LOL Kalynne, just in case my kids read this ya know.

cindy said...

My husband is a soccer fan. He has season tickets to the local MLS team; after every home game, he comes home and watches it all over again on the DVR.

He'll even watch the games on the foreign channels, full volume.

Did you know "goal" (usually pronounced "gooooooooooooooooooal!) sounds the same no matter what language?