"hello, this is lawrence, kansas...is there anybody there? anybody at all..."

am i the only one?

not watching the super bowl, i mean.

it kinda feels that way.

earlier this afternoon, prior to gametime, the stores and roads were packed. the line at the carwash wrapped around a couple times. at one grocery store there were no parking spots. none.

now? ghost town. just a handful of cars on the road. front row parking at the grocery store. no one at the carwash.

it's a little creepy. post-apocalyptic. i expect to see zombies any moment.

and then i think: wtf? seriously? so many people are so slavishly addicted to this game that civilization shuts down ten minutes before kickoff? sure, the infrastructure is still in place, but the people have abandoned it.

full disclosure: i used to be a super bowl zombie. the idea of missing a play or one of the fabulous tv spots was heretical. but as the years and the games and the roman numerals clicked by, i drifted away. and i remember the day the epiphany happened.

it was during some undifferentiated mid-preseason, and i was watching the chicago bears play some team or other. suddenly it occurred to me that this game was exactly like the games i watched the season before, and the season before that. there were some running plays, followed by some pass plays, followed by a punt. or a field goal. or a hyperbolic touchdown celebration.

aside from the names on the back of the uniforms, nothing ever changed. not the pregame shows, not the postgame interviews, certainly not the games themselves. check that, one thing changed: the hype. the hype has gone up orders of magnitude since then. the importance of each and every contest is on an arc to which nothng else compares. every game is a must-win, every play is a game-changer, every shot of the head coach on the sidelines is apoplectic.

the drama is unbearable, the tension must be carved with rhetorical chainsaws. the outcomes are so serious that nothing outside the lines matters.

that's what the machine would have us believe. trouble is, i'm no longer a believer.

this puts me (and my wife and our children) in what feels like a suspicious minority. i'm starting to worry we'll be visited, one sunny super bowl sunday, by the nfl inquisition, demanding to know why we're not participating in the national day of worship.

i'm not saying i had a big fun day, sans super bowl. but i did.

it started with a walk to the village for breakfast with the missus and the dogs. followed by the aforementioned trips to the grocery stores. the car got washed, as did four loads of laundry. folded. i ran 4.9 miles (41 minutes), cooked dinner, drank some good wine, and typed up this little whatever-it-is. oh, and i cut up a fresh pineapple. i like fresh pineapple.

it just occurred to me, i do not have the express-written consent of the nfl to use the name of its signature game in this post. henceforth, i should refer to it as "the big game," as so many nonpaying nonsponsors are required to do.

yeah, fuck them. super bowl. super bowl! super bowl!!

that should've felt good. but it didn't. it just felt kind of blase. which is exactly how i feel about their big game. i mean, really, the last time anything remotely interesting happened was the janet jackson-justin timberlake wardrobe malfunction. the fact that a painfully insignificant slip of a nip could be such a HUGE scandal speaks volumes about america's IQ. meanwhile, george bush was busy tossing the country about like a gorilla with an american tourister suitcase, raising nary an eyebrow amongst an anesthetized populace.

but the momentary appearance of a nipple during the sacred game!? OMG!

i digress.

frankly, i wish the nfl season would never end, and every sunday were super bowl sunday. my weekend errands would go a lot quicker, and i could feel increasingly superior to everyone not taking advantage of all the time not spent ingesting the hype.

but eventually people would catch on, and the stores would fill up, and the carwash would be full of cars. and i would sit there in line and wish for the good old days when everyone was addicted to the nfl.

almost everyone.