I’ve only sat through a football game once: back when we were dating Mike wanted to see a UCLA game, so we watched Oregon beat them. Or, he watched and I played on my Blackberry (we needed my student ID for the lower ticket prices)—I think we still left early. Before that, I went to a women’s college and a high school with a pathetically bad football team and a nationally recognized halftime show—the bleachers filled a while after kickoff and emptied long before the clock ran out.
Which brings us back to the very beginning. Mike has to tell me that a football game is played in sixty minutes, divided into four fifteen minute quarters. But because of time-outs and starts and stops, most games take around three hours to play out. The three hour thing explains two critical points: 1) why I’ve never sat through a game and 2) why football takes over so many of our Sundays and the occasional Monday. Gotcha.
He starts drawing a diagram. Oh God. There are diagrams. I am momentarily paralyzed by a flashback to high school geometry. Or worse still, chemistry, which I was taught by an inept ex-employee of Anheiser-Busch that was eventually asked to resign in the middle of the fall semester.
Excuse the grease stains. We’re eating pizza as we converse to at least nudge me in the right direction. You’ll notice that he’s notated defense as “D” and a picture of a fence. Awesome. I’ve been reduced to the “I Can Read!” level. But I quickly learn that I’m not even ready for words, as Mike shows me the “lines” of the 100X50 yard rectangle that is the football field. I think I knew that the lines descended from the center of the field ending in a ten-yard endzone for both teams, but it was nice of him to explain it to me anyway. Way better than chem.
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