Super Bowl Party-less

I don't need to tell you the Green Bay Packers are going to the big dance this weekend. That's because everybody in the world already knows.

It's going to be wild. As we speak, fans are tinting Dallas green and gold, the local paper is talking nothing but football, football, football, and bar owners statewide are seeing dollar signs as they get ready for the beer to flow. Everybody in Wisconsin and beyond is party-planning for a day of eating, drinking, and game watching. Our sons will be with their friends, cheering on their beloved team and having a festive time. Even my sister Kathy, who lives in New York and has broken bread with the likes of famous writer E.L.Doctorow more times than she's watched a Green Bay Packer game (she even had dinner with Arthur Miller once . . . OMG!), is going to a Super Bowl Party (for the first time in her life) and dragging her poor Spanish born non-football watching husband with her.

Katz and I? We'll be home alone.

To Katz, the game is sacrosanct. It is to be watched with laser vision. Katz is one of those guys who has been a Packer fan, win or lose, for his entire life. He came from a family that didn't watch football, yet for as long as he can remember, even when they stunk (and they did!) he was in front of the TV watching every down.Going to the Super Bowl is the icing on the cake for all Packer backers, but for Katz, it's a religious experience. He's as devoted and knowledgeable as they come. He married me, I like to think, because he loved me, but having a father with season tickets to the Packer games didn't hurt.

I'd like to invite my sister Mary, whom Katz is very fond of, to watch the game with us. Despite a long-lived resentment towards the team (which got more undivided attention on Sundays from our beloved, over-worked physician father then any of his nine children could get in a week), she's come to feel at least a bit of that sense of ownership towards the team that comes along with being a Wisconsinite. But even having Mary over presents an insurmountable problem for Katz.

It's not like he wouldn't tell her to be quiet if she talked at the wrong time (which during a Packer game is just about anytime, and during a Super Bowl includes the commercials, so we're talking a non-conversational three to four hours)--he would definitely stop her from talking. It's not that he wouldn't yell at her if she--God forbid--got up and walked in front of the TV, because heaven knows he'd find the appropriate words to make her scamper faster than a frightened rabbit on amphetamines.

Katz has phenomenal language skills, an instinctive sense of humor, and enough good will built up to handle all of these hypothetical situations. Alas, what he can't control, what he has no ability to turn off or tone down, is his profanity. It is irreverent, x-rated, constant, loud, and heartfelt. Being in the room with Katz during a Super Bowl when the Packers are playing would be like being in a room with a shaken bottle of champagne and a loose cork; sooner or later, all hell is going to break loose and no one within 30 feet will be safe.

So, our Packer gear is laid out waiting to be donned, we've got a few tasty treats on the menu, and the good beer is on tap. I'm going to be watching the Packers play with nothing but some Johnsonville dippers and a couch cushion between me and a ranting, raving, leaping, swearing football maniac. No Margaritas or tables laden with goodies for me; no womanly chit-chat or male bonding to entertain me. Today, it's me, the guy who still makes my world spin, and the home team at the Super Bowl.

Curses!