Pigskin

I’ve been trying to understand football. You know, I just don’t GET it. Each year at the beginning of the season, I have a desultory desire to pay attention to the games so that I can at least have a passing clue as to what is going on. But it is as foreign to me as being plopped down on Mars in the midst of an alien race, speaking an alien language, living a plethora of alien concepts and having odd societal interactions.

For one thing, tell me how this is different than organized, legalized gang warfare? Everyone has their ‘colors’ and their secret signals and their need to defend and support their ‘team/gang’ at all costs. I’m just saying!

Right now there is a team in black jerseys and white Capri pants fighting over a ball with some guys in blue shirts and white Capri pants. They have their gang signs proudly painted on their helmets as an added way to tell them apart. They seem to be numbered, and yet there is no apparent pecking order or sequence of importance to the numbers. For instance, it seems to me that #9 would be higher in gang-status than, say, #37. And of course #1 is nowhere to be seen because that guy is the gang leader and doesn't have to get his Capri Pants dirty. I am assuming he is up high in the bleachers behind one of those glassed in boxes that each team has.

But I am all wrong about how I interpret the meanings of numbers in football, and no one seems to be able to enlighten me. It's some 'initiates only' secret, I presume.

I try my best to follow the plays and the various posturing, shoving, running, and piling up on each other and I almost start to understand it but those male announcers will not SHUT UP for long enough to grasp what just happened. They Are Too Noisy! I actually think football might be kind of fun if everyone would just shut up for a bit. Can't they at least use their indoor voices?

After the game, and at intervals throughout the game, the male announcers will jabber back and forth in excited tones, making references to last season and this season’s ‘picks’ and 'yards' and 'first downs' all the while name dropping amongst each other like anything. They seem to do a lot of self-congratulating and agreeing with each other over the finer points of game strategy. Rather like brandishing their shields and flags at each other and doing a hoppity Zulu Dance.

Five minutes after the game is over, I can no longer remember who played, who won, or anything that went on. All I know is that I'm always hearing, "It's time for the Big Game!" Or, "I can't do that, I have to watch the BIG GAME." But the problem is, it's ALWAYS the Big Game!

And that business about the Game being over and the End of the Season is just a lot of hooey, too, because there is always another Big Game and another New Season just around the corner. No one REALLY ever wins in football, which is another reason I am convinced it's nothing but legalized gang warfare. Thank Goodness they aren't allowed to carry weapons!