Understatement of the year: Organized sports are not my thing.
Playing them is out because of that whole sweating thing. You know who sweats? The people who make my clothes — so unless you’re employed by Kathy Lee making 17 cents an hour in a sweatshop, there’s really no reason to choose to sweat.
Watching sports is even worse because of that whole boring thing. Do I want to watch mildly incompetent, drug-addicted negligent fathers try to relive their childhood athletic dreams? I like my athletes where they belong — telling Tom Cruise to show them the money or running a dogfighting ring. No, I’m just kidding. I also like them writing books telling how they would have murdered their wives if they had decided their spouses needed a good murdering or two.
So excuse me if when I get invited to a Super Bowl party, my first thought is: a SUPER bowl!? Better than the Arv Bröllop brand at IKEA? Those are so fancy. How much are these super bowls anyway, and most importantly, are they dishwasher-safe?
Sure, sure, eventually I remembered what the Super Bowl is ... It’s what happens the day before the day you have to Google the best Super Bowl commercials so you’re not left out of the convos that day. I remember I didn’t AskJeeves that nine years ago — no Googling back then, you young whippersnappers — and was forced to spend the day being surrounded by what I had to assume were crazy people yelling “Whazzzzzzzup!” to each other. And no one ever seemed to care when I responded by informing them what was indeed up. No! They just kept asking each other! I don’t think anyone even cared that, in fact, not much was up with me!
I’m sure some Super Bowl parties just watch the commercials and mute that filler mess, right? You realize you can always, absolutely always find out who’s going to win before any major game? Call Vegas and ask them the odds — look, I just saved you five hours! You’re welcome.
But if you’re going to make me endure a five-hour Tostitos-filled borefest, I have two conditions. One, they better be Tostitos Scoops, because they make salsa-scooping — like the name implies — a bajillion times easier and more delicious. Two, like all boring things, we should make it more fun by gambling on it.
For instance, back when I was addicted to PCP, my cellmate once bet me that I couldn’t go a day without shivving someone for a hit. Anyway, long story short, I’m now addicted to gambling. I don’t actually mean PCP — I was just trying to act cool. I was actually addicted to a much more dangerous acronym: CBB, aka collecting Beanie Babies. Sorry about that inappropro PCP reference, but I’m also addicted to lying.
Anyway back to gambling for fun — and profit. Now I’m not suggesting you abuse the readily available fact of who’s going to win the big game and take your friends for all their hard-earned blue-collar monies. I’m suggesting you use betting as a way to feel more invested in the otherwise pointless winner. For example, when I bet $5 that Bella would pick Jacob instead of Edward ... Wait, that’s a bad example, because I lost $5 and 100 hours of my life reading those Harry Potter-wannabe books for fugly preteen girls who wish they were ever going to get a choice between two boys but will obviously die alone or with far too many cats.
“Wait a minute, Mr. Steve! I don’t need to bet on a team to become emotionally invested in the game! Why, I practically —” and let me stop you right there, junior, because I swear to Zac Efron, if you were about to say you bleed [insert team’s usually clashing and hideous colors here], then I will ralph all over you. I mean, seriously, black and gold? Is you a blinged-out bumblebee!?
And before you point out the obvious fact that I’m too bitter and snarky to ever understand your magical relationship with a team you’ve never met from a city you’ve never been to, don’t. I, too, once had a favorite team: the Miami Dolphins. But then I watched a football game and realized this is not what I thought I was getting into. I thought it’d be more like that live-action dolphin escapade movie with Elijah Wood — “Flipper.” Completely let down, I threw away my Miami Dolphins pogs and my pro-“Miami” Big Willie Style CD and vowed to never let myself invest in anything again. I’m serious; I keep all my money in J.Crew gift cards under my mattress.
With one minor exception, I am happy to watch fake organized sports — not wrestling though, and if you even think of making a wrestling reference to my name, I will hunt you down like a dog that escaped from my dogfighting — I mean, Quidditch — arena. I can just hear the moans, and no, this isn’t a pro-Potter tirade, because I think Harry Potter is a whiny little &$%^#&, I only like Hermione and the crazy albino girl. But no, there’s only one good thing about Quidditch and that’s the high probability of horrible injury and/or death — how does that Ginny-mackin’ dork keep surviving those falls?
Yeah, yeah, yeah — if I wanted to see fiery deaths, I could just watch Nascar, but if I wanted to watch and hear something go around in circles for hours aimed at a redneck-exclusive audience, I would just listen to an argument on Fox News.
But don’t worry, I’m desperate for friendship, so I’m still coming to your Super Bowl party. There are a few things you can count on: I’m eating all your Scoops and not sharing and I’m also just going to yell “That’s a technical!” every five seconds, including during commercials.
If you want me to behave and watch sports with you, call me when the world goes back to some good, wholesome sports entertainment — anything involving Michael Phelps or gladiator fights to the death. Ancient civilization was the funnest. Holler!
Steve’s column runs weekly Fridays. He can be reached at s.austin@cavalierdaily.com.
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