Noooo! This can’t be happening? Hasn’t the pandemic been agony enough. Why, oh why, am I now in college football hell – again?
One would think that the fact a fan can experience Big 12 football during a pandemic would be a most supreme blessing. But sadly, in my case this is not what’s happening.
If you’re confused now and pondering why a fall afternoon spent luxuriating on a coach generously sprayed with a very aromatic Febreze Pumpkin Spice while watching a football game on your TV is anything other than nirvana I totally understand.
The problem is my husband is a graduate of the University of Texas and therefore a Longhorn football fan. This means every fall I’m forced to ride along with him on an emotional journey fraught with hope, disappointment, another brief shining millisecond of hope and then a turbulent tumble into a chasm of despair.
Longtime readers will note that this is the third time I’ve written about this topic and yet I still find it newsworthy because the misery index seems higher this fall and it’s not even that the football team sucks. As I write this they’ve only lost two games.
The anguish is rooted in how they play. To my very untrained eyes the activity on the field is sloppy and so painful to watch that not even a jalapeño pecan cheese spread can save the day and that’s saying something. This cheese spread is a multi-layered taste sensation that should be able to turn any football frown upside down.
For my own mental well-being I rarely sit through an entire game. My modus operandi is to periodically check in on my husband to make sure he hasn’t stroked out. I will, in an attempt to be supportive, try to watch the game, but it’s hard.
To get through the last game I took to reading random stuff on my phone. A link on the proper way to re-grout your shower was so mesmerizing it got me through the second quarter. Who knew that you needed a “diamond bit grout remover blade” to do it properly? Seriously, what homeowner has that laying around in their basement?
I then switched to reading recipes. I found what I thought was a great one for pumpkin doughnut drops but it required two cups of lemon lime soda and that just seemed wrong. Soda in doughnuts sounded about as bad as U.T. losing in, I don’t know, two or was it three overtimes to O.U.?
Ugh, about that loss. It was brutal. My husband had to walk it off and after he got home he made the oft heard declaration that he was “done watching Texas play football.”
I swear even our two dogs rolled their eyes at this one. If there’s one thing that’s been said more in our marriage then “What’s for dinner?” It’s “I’m done watching Texas football.”
I just shook my head and tried not to audibly sigh. The chances of my husband not watching a Texas football game are slim to none. He can’t help himself. It’s like me with that cheese dip you just can’t stop even though you know it’s not exactly a bounty of nutritional good judgement.
Of course, I’ll be there for him as we spend another autumn on the Texas football hot mess express. I’ve suffered so much already from getting a 3rd degree sunburn back in 1980 while literally roasting in the stands at Darrell Royal Stadium to enduring the women’s restroom lines at the Cotton Bowl in 2000 while seven months pregnant. One hour people, one solid hour, standing in line to use the bathroom.
Frankly, at this point all the suffering has become a tradition. I’m not sure it would even feel like fall without it.
