Super Bowl Day Celebration Alternatives

Genteel Readers;

Perhaps the most gauche of all "holidays" is upon us, that of Superbowl Day.  Over the years, it has evolved from single game played on a single day into a veritable orgy of junk food, domestic fermentation products, shouting, and as the evening progresses the whole thing erodes into both a literal and figurative hangover.  Compostables go uncomposted, relegated to landfills.  Aluminum cans which once shamefully housed domestic ale are also relegated to landfills along with a plethora of mylar and plastic bags, former homes of crass foodstuffs which are more the product of industry than wise cultivation by highly skilled organic farmers. As soon as the game ends, police officers rush from their stations and coffee houses to crack down on the entropic demolition derby that is the great unwashed trying to drive home from their Superbowl Day events hopped up on refined sugar and alcohol.

Last year when I was a simple albeit ignorant graduate student, I answered Occupy Bellevue's call to action and stood at the corner of 148th and 8th Street in Bellevue with a cardboard sign on which I had scribbled a subversive slogan.  "Honk if you hate the Stupid-Bowl" it read.  Nobody honked, but I attribute this to the fact that motorists were driving much too fast to read it, despite the fact that I had very carefully printed it on that shoe-box cover in bold caps with a red pen and would shake the sign angrily and vigorously when I saw a motorist approaching, all the better for them to notice my sign-mongering.  

This year, things are different.  I have blossomed lotus-style into a very sophisticated and genteel professional writer, all the better to admonish you who remain in intellectual darkness of better and wiser means by which you can observe Super Bowl Day without deigning to gawk at a flickering TV for several hours.

 Foot Ball Denizen/Deep Brain Thrombosis Denizen

First of all, there is a growing body of evidence that watching foot ball results in traumatic brain injuries such as concussions, stroke, coma, something called "deep brain thrombosis," or even brain death.  This is a virtual endemic among foot ball enthusiasts and is readily apparent should you choose to attend a live foot ball performance.  (It is at once awful and terrifying.  Shoving through crowds, loud yelling,  actual wearing of war paint, cursing, and unhealthy foods abound.  Never again shall I attend such a cacophonic performance, genteel readers!)  Rather than hosting a Super Bowl Day party, it is my genteel suggestion that you host a sort of intervention dinner.  Invite all your loved ones who regularly watch foot ball to your house for Super Bowl Day.  Really ham it up, hand written invitations with RSVP required, allusions to a cornucopia of ales and junk foods, and several references to a celebration of the art of foot ball in bright colors apt to catch their attention.

Foot Ball Performer in Partial Regalia 

When all your guests have arrived, you then discreetly block them in your driveway with your car and, dramatically storming through the front door, cut the cord to the television.  (Unplugging or turning it off will not suffice, as they will just plug it back in or turn it back on, etc.)  You then sit them down to a healthy, nutritious organic meal with ingredients purchased at the local farmer's market.  Substitute apple cider for beer, potatoes au gratin with scallops for "Sour Cream 'n' Onion" potato chips, and beef wellington for anything carcinogenic that would have been prepared on a bar-BQ.  You now have a captive audience, and can make a presentation on the ills and perils of traumatic brain injury caused by viewing foot ball while your guests eat their delicious and nutritious "vittles" (as foot ball fans are wont to refer to their food.)  Once your presentation is complete and everyone has finished their kumquat-merengue desserts, you may feel free to very genteelly pass around a collection plate for donation to some manner of charity for rehabilitating traumatic brain injury denizens.  Do remember to keep half the proceeds to recoup yourself for both your expertise and investment.

Should you feel anxious on Super Bowl Day and are unable to host a party, there are other things you can do to better the world you live in vis-a-vis anti-Super-Bowl activities.  First, either call your guests and cancel or simply pull the blinds and lock all your doors with the collection plate left on your doorstep.  Then, prepare to do some serious study.  Your choices on what to do with this time is entirely up to you so long as it is anti-super-bowl-day.

Typical Foot Ball Cheer Leader 

For example, you could write a novel in which the main character tends to a loved one who is dying from deep brain thrombosis after getting entirely too excited about his favorite quarterback's interception.  You could write a letter to your favorite Green Party candidate on legislation regarding foot-ball you'd like to see enacted once the rest of the world becomes enlightened and the green party gains a decisive majority in congress.  (If you favor the Democrats or Republicans I don't know what to tell you, other than to please stop reading my 'blog - ostensibly to steal my ideas and feed them to the machine.)  One such suggestion would be to replace it with the less rowdy, more sophisticated European version called rug bee.  Or better yet, switch it over to European style football (which Americans rudely and incorrectly call "soccer,") so that none of the remaining fans (this is a post enlightenment world we're talking about!) notices the difference.

I myself will be busy writing another novel with the intent of bettering you, the people.  It begins "It was the best of time, but it was also not-so-good times."  At this point, I am contending with a serious bout of writers block.  Yet this particular novel strikes me as having nearly unlimited potential in it's current form, and I think it no exaggeration to say this could be the written tome that brings about the age of enlightenment you all yearn for.  I am thinking the plot will revolve around two high-school morons who are forced to travel through time in a futuristic phone booth to kidnap persons of interest with the intent of displaying them to a hooting crowd of teenage idiots.  There will be a wise man who accompanies and at times renders aid, and when the movie version is produced I should wont this role to be reprised by me.