Bench Writing Launch!!

Most people who are women do not care about sports. And there's no reason why we should. At the turn of the twentieth century it was decided that men would waste time by watching other men run around and chase a ball and women would waste time by spending money on accessories, and everyone in the United States signed off on that and we all collectively forgot that we used to go outside occasionally and make things we needed for ourselves.

The snag in that plan is that we live in a gender-integrated society, and if you are a woman it is not unlikely that you will occasionally get stuck in a room where people are watching sports and there will be no way at all to buy shoes. You will probably be unprepared, but panicking never helps. I have found that the best way to cope with this situation is to stay really quiet for the most part, but there are simple tricks you can use to look like you understand whatever game is on the TV. For example, when I'm trapped in a room with a football game, I just wait until I see somebody run really far all at once, and then I act really excited. It doesn't matter which team he's on, because if it turns out he's one of the enemy you can just pretend later that you were mad about him doing well.

Today just happens to be National Care About Sports Day. And although I am a woman and I don't care about sports, I had nothing else to do today so I watched the Super Bowl with my husband. It gave me motion sickness. I have less practice even than most women at watching football because I grew up in Los Angeles, where there hasn't been a team for twenty years (or so, I am not checking that fact). Our family was an all-girl house of supernerds, and even our dad was kind of a puss. He did watch BYU games every once in a while, but that was just because he was the mascot there for a while. It could have been a whole year, but I can't be sure because I refuse to check that fact as well. I know he kept the cougar head under his bed because he told me a story once about how he tried to impress a girl by showing it to her, but I guess even in the seventies a giant felt cougar head was not a turn-on for women, because she was apparently horrified. She did make it all the way to his dorm room, though, so if he'd had a designer handbag under the bed instead of an amusement park costume he might have gotten a little action.

It would be easy for me to spend the next 364 days pretending that there is no such thing as a Super Bowl, but the truth is I'm bored, and I am smelling an opportunity here. So consider this my official announcement that I am hereby jumping on board the “Blog Project” train. I am going to spend the next year learning and blogging about football, and after next season's Super Bowl I can quit my job and join the circus or something. Actually, I'll probably just go buy a hat.

Next week, I pick my team. If you are one of the three people reading this and you have any suggestions, I welcome your input.