I simply can’t seem to wrap my head around football. That’s American football for those of you playing along from anywhere else. I usually make a concerted effort to bend me some gender stereotypes – thanks, Sarah Lawrence! – and figure sports out, even if I don’t play any of them. There was that memorable moment two summers ago during the England-Paraguay match when the classic Sweet’n'Low/Equal/ketchup bottle thing solved my offsides dilemmas once and for all, oh, that was a glorious moment. And even though I don’t understand the scoring behind tennis, I love watching it.
But there’s just something about football. I think it’s maybe the fact that although I ostensibly understand the game, when it gets down to brass tacks I can’t see the ball most of the time for the big pile of manly men on top of it. Maybe one of my needs for enjoyable sports-watching is actually being able to see the object of the game? Like, the ball? It seems like football is just one ten-guy pileup after another, how am I expected to know who’s holding the ball? I don’t know.
Or maybe it’s all the stopping. I like momentum! This end! That end! Scuffly bits in the middle! That end again! But then with football it’s more like pileup! Odd break for reasons I don’t have the grasp of strategy to understand! People gesturing at each other emphatically! If you don’t understand the game to start with this is going to alienate you. I like more running less talking, apparently, in my sports events.
The thing is, I was on drill team in Texas in high school (I KNOW LET’S NOT TALK ABOUT IT). I watched about two years’ worth of games. Staring straight ahead. For two hours. You’d think I would have picked up some pointers. What was I doing all that time, counting spectators in the opposing bleachers? Cleaning out schmutz from my teeth? I don’t know.
It was very humbling last night to be sitting in a room of my nearest and dearest during the last ten minutes of the superbowl and know that I should be yelling at the screen? Because, I mean, history-making insanity was happening? And I’m not made of dumb, I mean, I could see that the score had pulled quite a switcheroo and wow, the Giants were winning, but I genuinely couldn’t see why or how. Or the ball.
My humble ignoramus pie was further compounded by the three texts I received from Stuart all within five minutes: “wow OMG” and “holy shit” and then “rather into this now”. Even my English husband, who’d decided to stay home and chill out, was getting this game more than I do. For shame!
At least the turducken was good.