Super Bowl?

I have been gone this week for two reasons. One was that I was homeschooling my teenage granddaughter Monday and Tuesday which is the bright spot in every week. The second is that I was busy making my house "Southern Living" perfect because we were having some friends and family over for the "Super Bowl". I was forced to do my spring cleaning and it's 23 degrees outside. Oh, well, at least it is done for this year and I can spend my spring tending to my flowers instead of my house.

What I have never understood is what makes the Super Bowl so super? Don't get me wrong. I have watched more super bowls than most women. My dad watched every one during his lifetime and what daddy watched we kids had to watch because it was too cold outside to play. So there we sat, watching the super bowl and listening to Daddy yell at the NFL team (this was so long ago that there was an AFL and a NFL with no NFC or AFC).

I thought I had "lucked out" when I married a man who just wasn't that in to football. For 30 years we didn't watch the super bowl, not even at church super bowl parties. Then came last year when a neighbor invited us to his super bowl party. We had a blast just socializing with the neighbors while the football game ran and demanded silence as the best of the best of the commercials aired.

That was that. He was hooked, not on the super bowl, but the party. His brother was suppose to host this year's "wing ding" but he had to cancel at the last minute so Phil brought the whole "kit and kaboodle" over to our house and invited the neighbors. Now all you women out there know what that means- MAJOR CLEANING. God forbid that one of those people find a dog or cat hair or a speck of dust under a bed or couch. Then there is the food that must be prepared. I must pause here and thank my loving husband. He went out and bought all the food so that I would not have to cook anything. Once again he became one of my best blessings.

The party began along with the football game. It was a good game, though I missed the best part because I was playing scrabble with the women and my step-nephew. But I could hear the whooping and hollering from the den and periodically we sent my grandson to check the score. I have never heard so much excitement over just another football game. And the disappointment the coach of the losing team felt and how he tried to get the media to focus on the "Cinderella" season his team had had.

Isn't that the way we tend to act with our significant other? I know I do. They work and work and strive for long periods of time to be loving, considerate, and caring, and all we see is the time they screw up (to quote the President). They may do a great job, say, picking up after themselves or straightening up the house, or keeping the dishes washed and the trash out, but you let them forget to carry out the trash one time and we are all over them for not doing their "job". You know, if the trash bothered us so much, why didn't we take it out?

What I am trying to say is don't let your relationship turn into a series of super bowls. Be sure to notice when he/she is helping out and going out of the way to be courteous and loving. And don't get "historical" over one mistake or slight. You see, relationships are like football seasons, they are composed of many "games" and many "wins" and some "losses". Don't boil all those "games" into one moment in time, one "super bowl", because relationships are made up of two humans that will definitely fail you multiple times. But what makes a romance is the season, not the super bowl.