An Ode To NFL Sundays

There are few things more depressing than returning home after an amazing Sunday of football and beer and writing drunken aggressive emails to your congressman with your pants at your ankles, sesame chicken in your lap, and 4 x 6 glamour shots of Martin Gramatica still bubbling and smoking on the floor from when you lit them on fire.             

But this piece is not about those desperate hours.  This is a celebration of the best afternoon of entertainment around, if you don’t count Tuesday Bingo at Roscoe’s Rockin’ Retirement Home, where just last week Vern “Poop Pants” Floogberg won the grand prize of a pink flamingo lawn ornament before drowning in a bowl of carrot puree at his table.  

Vern’s last spoken word was “Pants!”  Take a wild guess at what his penultimate word was. 

Roscoe’s Rockin’ Retirement Home slogan: “We don’t bury bodies.  We just house ‘em.”

This past weekend, I watched the games with a few friends, loving every minute of it, as usual.  Sundays are so delicious, it doesn’t even matter to me if my team is on.  I just enjoy the experience.  Watching grown men knock the crazy out of one another is enjoyable in itself.  

If we were in Ancient Rome, I would definitely be the plebeian with mutton smeared all over his face and a half-loaf of moldy bread in hand.  Constantly frothing at the mouth, I’d plead for somebody, ANYBODY, to hack off a limb, for Jupiter’s sake!  

“GIVE EM THE MEDIEVAL MACE TO THE JUGULAR, YOU GLADIATOR NINCOMPOOP!”  I’d shout.  Of course, while the general spirit of my words would be well understood, the middle ages would not occur for many centuries.   

My buddy, James—an enormous Italian kid who I suspect chugs a raw egg in secret every time he goes to the bathroom—and I were watching the Jets pull ahead at this place in the Village called “Off the Wagon.”  He was correcting me on comments I’d made on hunting deer.

“I mean...I suppose you could dress up like Janet Reno and shoot at random with an elephant gun, hoping for a ‘head shot’...but...dude,” James said, baffled, “What are you even talking about?  Have you ever been hunting?”   

“Whatever, man.  I’m watching the game.  That dumb conversation was so 70 seconds ago.  Live in the now.”

We also watched the Giants scalp the Cowboys.  It’s difficult for me to watch Eli Manning on TV sometimes.  Growing up in New Orleans, he was always the older kid who, with my brother, would ritually torture me when he would come over.  One time, when I was six, he and my brother crept up on me as I was napping.  They smeared ketchup all over my underwear and legs and stomach.  And a little poo on my nose. 

I awoke screaming, horrified, thinking my peenie had been cut off.  I ran around the house, naked, ketchup-covered and bawling. 

“MY PEENIE!” I screamed.  “MY PEENIE!!!!!”  I called 911 and, choking on my tears, managed to tell the operator, in effect, that there was a peenie-related incident at the Hearin household and that they needed to come quick.

By the time the cops arrived, I was roaming around on the street, buck-naked, screaming “PEENIE!  PEENIE!  PEENIE!”  Andrew and Eli were inside, cracking up and plotting their next stunt.  

The policemen approached, puzzled at first.  They understood the prank when they saw the two boys laughing through the window of our house.  

“The only part I don’t understand, son,” the first officer said, “Is why you have human feces on your nose.”  

I still hold a grudge, Eli.  I’ve been pickling this one piece of poo for a decade now.  I’m coming for you.  Better Belize it.  

Despite certain bad memories football-watching conjures, it’s now probably my favorite part of the week, especially if the Saints manage to eek out a rare win. 

I’m beginning to question if Tuesday Bingo is better than football Sundays.  Since Vern death-gargled in his puree, a pall has loomed over the Home.  We’re wondering if we should postpone the event for a couple weeks to get our bearings straight. 

It was pretty surreal when the boys from Morty’s Mortuary came to pick up the body—having to beat Vern’s rigid arm with a brass candlestick to get him to release the pink flamingo lawn ornament. 

Morty and Roscoe are pretty tight.  

Morty’s Mortuary slogan: “We don’t make bodies.  We just bury ‘em.”  

On Sunday, the Hawaiian shirt clad, mirrored aviators-wearing, obese director, Morty, announced a huge sale.  In his used car salesman, Dick Vitale-esque tone, he screamed in the ad that appeared in the fourth quarter of the Jets game: “FIRE SALE, BABY!  Big discounts on arson deaths, poisonings, triple murders, and regicides!  Half off on decapitation deaths!  EVERYTHING MUST GO...UNDERGROUND!!!”    

Sure, around 4 am, terribly hungover, with the monotony, the misery, of the workweek staring at you in the form of your digital alarm clock, you sadly contemplate the coat hanger—only to realize that a 98th term self-abortion would be exceedingly difficult.  But you should never let that awful feeling deter you from the orgasmic experience of socializing with friends and watching your favorite team get the “Floogberg” beaten out of them.