Your Football Talk is Ruining My Super Bowl Celebration
I hate to break it to you, sugar buns, but no one is going to be talking about defensive line gaps.
Hey, babe, I think we need to spend Super Bowl Sunday apart.
The big game is important to me, honey, and I feel like you don’t appreciate it quite the same way a life-long foodie like myself does.
Look, it’s pretty obvious you’re only pretending to understand and enjoy my appetizers just so you can crash on my couch and watch my 77" 4K OLED TV. Sweetie, you don’t have to lie and act as though you the slightest clue what the seven layers are in my ancestral bean dip.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of, my darling. A lot of people are casual snackers. You all just want to share in the excitement of the day with the people you love. You probably don’t realize how annoying it can be when you start talking about red zone strategies while I’m sweating over how to elevate my locally-sourced guacamole.
Don’t worry about it. I know you love me. We can have our separate interests. I want to put together my famous deconstructed Chex Mix. You, on the other hand, want to deconstruct the two-minute offense. That conversation has its place and time, of course. Super Bowl Sunday isn’t it, though.
Don’t pout, cutie pie. How could you know that I’ve been populating my football recipe Pinterest page since August? Sure, I’d hoped you’d noticed that this year my spreads have been culinary homages to the hometown teams’ mascots. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make a Billy Buffalo chicken wing that is both blue and not nauseating? Probably not. You’ve been awfully busy breaking down the Cover 2 defense to anyone who’d listen. And anyone who wouldn’t listen.
I do so appreciate that you ask if you can help in the kitchen, my dear! Cooking is complicated. I’d be thrilled to teach you all about the preparation of my curated chili cheese dogs or the complex mouthfeel of Cool Ranch Doritos served two ways. I’m happy to explain these things — and even have you be my sous chef! — during the preseason when it doesn’t really matter.
Super Bowl Sunday is the culmination of months of research and prep, not to mention foraging for the perfect artisanal Peruvian blood sausage for my signature pigs in a blanket. I want to leisurely decant my zingy ranch dressing. I want to use little tweezers to place individual flakes of Himalayan salt on my air-fryer tater skins. I want to perfect my Tex-Mex Dip foam. I’m obviously dabbling in molecular gastronomy this year in tribute to Super Bowls past, present, and future. This is very exciting. You need to let me focus.
And, honestly, I’d like to avoid a repeat of last year’s Super Bowl. Remember when you downed an entire 6-pack of Michelob Ultra and waxed philosophical on the perils of chef’s ass while you waved around my box of (imported!) cornstarch? Then, while I was constructing a mini-stadium out of deli meats and tortilla chips to the delight and awe of all our neighbors, you chose that moment to share your thoughts — loudly — on Next Gen Stats powered by AWS and why no one should run screen passes in the NFL.
That ruined the entire day. And my Tostitos Scooperdome.
I hate to break it to you, sugar buns, but no one is going to be talking about defensive line gaps or the Wide 9 technique during Monday morning’s ice breakers. We’re going to share what we ate. People care about my farm-to-table pork rinds a lot more than they care about Tom Brady.
I’m sorry to be harsh. This is the time of year we cheer for and analyze all things crispy, popovered, filled, rolled, ringed, dipped or dippable, skewered, chipotled, bacon-wrapped, pull-apart, bite-sized, supersized, over-stuffed, and puppy-chowed. And understanding that merely gets you a seat at the kitchen table.
Do you even know what totchos are? Oh, you do. Cool. You must have Googled “appetizers” right before coming over. That’s fine, adorable, even…but, can you explain the geo-political, cultural, economic, and environmental impacts of totchos? No? That’s what I mean. People like me experience the Super Bowl on a whole other level.
For this one day, I get to enjoy special foods with gusto and without apology. I pull on my lucky Crocs and striped chef pants and dream about living the chef’s life. Did I ever tell you my home ec teacher said I was a natural in the kitchen? I wanted to go pro, but my parents told me, “You can cook for fun, but you need a degree in the liberal arts so you can always support yourself.” Eh, maybe they were right. But Super Bowl Sunday is all about the fantasy. The glamour. Arranging fair trade charcuterie on sports-themed paper plates while binge-watching Chopped and salivating over the Michel Bras 8-piece knife set. It’s all so glorious.
I don’t want you to ruin my Super Bowl Sunday by making it all about football.
There, I said it. Please don’t be hurt, honey. Hey, why don’t you reach out to some of your friends and schedule a watch party where you can talk about third down conversion percentages, concussion protocols, and scoring reviews without having to try to impress me with your nom nom nom knowledge.
Jackie Pick is a writer, performer, and filmmaker living in the Chicago area. She is a contributor to several humor sites including The Belladonna Comedy, McSweeney’s, and Humor Outcasts, as well as several anthologies and literary magazines. Her essays have won commendations from the Mark Twain House and Museum Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition and the WOW! Women on Writing Nonfiction Essay Contest. You can follow Jackie on Twitter.
