I was in the supermarket today and a big jovial man with a big cart stuffed with buffalo wings, Nachos, Doritos, hot dogs, pizza and hamburgers came up to me and bumped my car, and then laughed and pounded my back, nearly knocking me into the poultry display. “You ready for the Giants?,” he asked, beaming from ear to ear. I was a bit embarrassed about my cart, which was filled with Broccoli, Almond Milk, wheat Fusilli, brown rice and various fruits and vegetables. “Let’s bang carts,” he suggested, “like Dodgem,”, as I fumbled to get my Ipod out of my ear and into my pocket. He was warming up for some macho banter.
I had briefly forgotten that today is yet another Super Bowl Sunday – XLVI – endowed with Roman Numerals to give it even more gas and gravitas than it already has. For me, it is more significant than my birthday because it reminds me that my inner male is very different from a lot of other inner males. I want to be a regular guy, and am working on it. I have always wanted to be a regular guy, and I think most guys do, on one level or another.
Just this morning, I announced to my sneering and incredulous wife that I was going to watch the game. “Really?,” she jeered, not as sensitive as she sometimes can be. I don’t have enough male friends to get a Buffalo Wing thing going, and no group of men has ever invited me over to watch the Super Bowl. When I was a kid, my favored male activity was running for my life while the other males tried to find me and beat me to death. If I went to a real Super Bowl Guy Thing, I probably would keel over and die halfway through the first quarter, after eating my wings and Doritos.
“Yes,” I always say, “I want to watch the ads.” Usually I last until the end of the first quarter and then I can’t take it anymore. There is so much bull and hype surrounding the Super Bowl, so much pretense, that I can’t really even find the game even if I try. Still, my inner male wants to come out. My goal is to make it through a whole game. This year, there is a local element – the New York Giants. All week, I can go up to the other guys and say, “hey, how about those f—– Giants.” And they will talk to me. All I really know about the Giants is that their coach has a foot fetish and that is impressive to me. It’s all I need to know. I do not have wings, but I do have wheat grain cracker chips and some V-8 vegetable juice. I am psyched.
As I was checking out, the cashier looked at my food and smiled. “I’m not having a Super Bowl party,” I said, a bit defensively.
“I see,” she said. “I love those wheat chips.”
It could be a fun game. And I am always interested to see the ads.