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I like football as much as the next woman. (If that woman also couldn’t care less about the actual game, but still wants to throw a party.) Football is the closest we come to the purest form of entertainment, Rome’s bloody gladiator battles. It’s been 500 years and we “masses” still like watching men beat each other’s brains out. The pleasure we take in other’s suffering is what makes us so charmingly human. That, plus opposable thumbs and crazy diets.
The great thing about football is that it gives us an excuse to throw a party where we don’t have to serve our guests a real dinner. A party where the all the food comes out of a bag and is dumped into bowls. And they don’t even have to be nice bowls. Hence the name “Super Bowl.” This is MY kind of party.
Super Bowl parties are indeed casual. It’s expected that the guests will bring something. The host (in this case me), assumes that the food brought will be suitably “footbally” in nature, but you never can tell. This year one of my friends offered to bring “the” goat cheese and “the” artichoke dip. You know, the classic cheese dish, eaten throughout the land on Super Bowl Sunday each year? Yeah, that’s right. Who brings goat cheese to the Super Bowl!?
Don’t get me wrong, I ADORE my friends. But maybe I should have given them a suggested list of appropriate foods…7 layer dip, wings, pigs in a blanket, nasty dips of any kind, beef jerky etc. The DOWNSCALE heartburn generators that everyone secretly craves and EXPECTS.
I'm not saying that I'd like people to bring Cheese Wiz, but it is universally assumed that the Classic Corn Chip will play the lead role on the Super Bowl buffet. That's because you need at least one food that can be safely thrown at the plasma screen when the ref makes a bad call. What if one of my guests brings sushi or caviar? Come Monday, my party will be the butt of jokes at water coolers everywhere. Oh the shame.
Oysters on the half-shell anyone?
Why the focus on food? Because I am unabashedly unashamed to admit that watching guys knock each other down doesn’t really interest me. I just DON’T CARE about football. I even had to check to see if Super Bowl was one word or two before I started writing this column. (FYI, the debate rages.) I do care however, if I run out of chips.
The one thing we can all agree on is that Super Bowl ads ROCK. My favorite ad ever was the E-trade one where the baby says he used his trading profits to rent a clown, then (with the clown in the background) he says “I underestimated the creepiness”. Maybe I’m easy to amuse, but I laugh at that line EVERY time.
This year my party has a Roman Arena Theme. The Dads will dress in Togas and leather sandals. Then during half-time, while me ‘an my peeps watch the commercials, the guys will hit the backyard and engage in a little hand to hand combat, gladiator style. Forget the football pool, I’m taking odds on the dad who’s 6’3”. He’s going to seriously bust those other guys up. I’m already stockpiling ace bandages and ice packs.
We may party lightheartedly during Super Bowl, but according to Time Magazine’s latest insightful yet scary article, playing football leads to early Alzheimer’s, death, and other brain related injuries. It shouldn’t come as news to us that getting repeatedly wacked in the head as a youth has negative long term health implications. I mean just look at that famous boxer - or any boxer. There may come a time when our insurance rates will go up based on what sports we played in high school. If they can raise rates on people who smoke or are overweight, why not because of the sports we choose to play?
So let’s agree now to help each other out. If you cover the insurance overages on my kids “chlorine induced” lung failure, I’ll spring for extra co-pays for your kid’s “headed the soccer ball too often” brain surgery…’Cause when it comes right down to it, living is risky business. And its not just football.
Now, pass the goat cheese please, it’s nearly halftime.
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