50 Ways to Use the Super Bowl...

There Must Be Fifty Ways to Watch the Stupor Bowl...

I don’t watch footbal because all I see is a bunch of millionaires in shiny pants running around a field. However, I do love the Stupor Bowl.

While your football fan partner is sitting in front of the TV with eyes glazed, grazing happily on BBQ and snacks, you can accomplish a lot.

Been wanting to get out of this relationship with all your stuff and not a big hassle? Rent a U-Haul, dress in sweats and tell you’re cleaning out the back bedroom. Pass your stuff out the bedroom window to whomever is helping you and you can pull can make a clean getaway by the end of the third quarter. Matter of fact, once you’re all packed, tell him you’re making a beer run and you need some money, and poof - you’re gone.

Have you longed to have a friend he hates over for a visit? Invite her during the Stupor Bowl. He’ll be in the living room all day for the pre-game, game, post game analysis, that’s twelve hours at least. You can have any friend in you like. He won’t care as long as nobody passes in front of the TV or asks any questions.

I once painted our bedroom and redecorated the whole room while himself watched the game. Afterward, he protested vehemently, so I just said, “Fine, put it back the way it was. All the old stuff is out in the garage.” Given a choice of repainting a room, dragging old furniture back in the house, taking off new bedding and putting on the old, OR complaining for a week then living with the new decor, all men will choose the latter. Somewhere it is written: Tis easier to complain than reclaim.

I have also used the Stupor Bowl to quickly and easily integrate new dishes or kitchen gadgets into the house. New plates appear, and when - IF - he notices them, you just say, “Oh, so and so gave them to us for our wedding. I just didn’t break them out till today. I was ready for a change.” Men never know what you got for a wedding gift or from whom, so you can use the excuse over and over for years. You can sneak in new food processors, new coffemakers, just anything that goes in a kitchen, it’s terrific and a real time saver. No need to listen to hours of him telling you, “We don’t need it.” Of course you need it. It was on sale, it’s better than the one you have, and besides, you love the color, ergo, you need it.

The Stupor Bowl is perfect for getting rid of the clothes he A} No longer can fit into but insists he can B} clothes that went out of fashion after high school but he refuses to believe that the definition of “cool” has evolved beyond him C} clothes his mother gave him that look awful but he refuses to acknowledge that not everything he owns looks fantastic on him.

If you have a daughter, this is where you teach her how to use the different sports events; Stupor Bowl, Basketball playoffs, all the other contests that declares winners, to her advantage. For someday, she may be in a relationship and have to sneak you in, with your luggage, so you can move in with them and help with the baby. Like a horse with blinders on, men do better if they don’t know whats going on around them. If they see too much and know too much, they might run from the house screaming and then the neighbors know too much.

Three Sheets to the Wind

Three Sheets to the Wind

There’s a new show on television about hoarding. I like to watch it because it makes me feel so much better about my house and helps me justify anything I want to keep, because at least, whatever I have, I’m not a hoarder! I can still walk through my house and be walking on carpet the whole time.

But my claim of not being a hoarder is challenged every January by the White Sales. All the stores sell beautiful bedding sets and every woman loves fresh, beautiful, new bedding. It livens up the whole room and motivates you to make other changes in the room or house.

And here’s where the hoarding comes in. There’s nothing harder for a gal to let go of than old sheets. Sheets, like a Thanksgiving turkey, have many incarnations before they are gone.

First, if it’s a complete sheet set, it becomes a back up set. You wash it and set it on the shelf for company. The “company sheets” are always a complete set. If one piece gets lost, ruined, or mislaid, the remaining components are relegated to the second incarnation of becoming bedding for the kids. You make a passing attempt to match one of the orphaned components, like a top sheet or pillow case, with the Spiderman or Mermaid sheets the kid has. You keep this semi-matching thing going as long as you can.

Soon after the kids get the sheets, you witness the third use of orphaned sheets; sheets make tents. Suddenly, tents are all over the house. You can’t have dinner at the dining room table anymore because Superman’s Fortress of Solitude is in your living room. It might also be Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders, or Batman’s Bat Vault, whatever it is, it is impenetrable by parents. You slip food and beverages under the edges for the occupants inside who are officially invisible as they plot the takeover of the world surrounded by four wooden chairs and a canopy of Laura Ashley flowers.

After tents, orphaned sheets become part of pet bedding. Sometimes we throw them over the couch where the dogs lie, and sometimes we fold them up and make a pad in the dog bed. It takes about two years for sheets to arrive at this fourth level.

The fifth level of a sheets life splits off here. Some cover old cars in the garage. Some get ripped up for rags in the garage. And some, the ones with the most life left in them, or the prettiest, become beach blankets. If you want to know a woman’s taste without asking her, look at her beach blankets.

“Sally, where did you get this hideous sheet?”
“What hideous? These are genuine Versace knockoffs. You don’t like red floral's?”
“It hurts my eyes. Was this a gift set? You didn’t buy these on purpose...”
“I love this sheets. I couldn’t bear to part with them. This is the last time I can enjoy them.”
“Thank God.”
”What?”
“I said, “That’s odd.” I meant what a shame. They must have been really bright when they were new.”
“They were gorgeous. Lit up the whole room all night long. I love red.”
“Only you.”
“What?”
“I said, “What’s new?”