Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Men Have Their Super Bowl, Women Have Super Bowl Envy

By Carol Mell, 2-03-08

I don’t get the Super Bowl. As far as I can tell it’s all about odd balls, bouncing female anatomy, beer, Roman Numerals and a few cars thrown in.

I do understand the game.

In fact, I was a football player myself with a bunch of boys in the neighborhood. Granted, they weren’t the most athletic types. One was fat and one had a withered hand but I was a girl so we were all making do.

The whole world disappeared when we played football on chilly fall afternoons, inventing plays so complex that if you outlined them on a map the shape would look like a hair tangle. We felt smart, happy, sweaty and satisfied when our Moms called us in for supper.

I suspect this is still what guys get from the Super Bowl, a day of disappearance when the world and its jobs, wars, bank accounts and relationships vanish and for the lucky ones, their women (like Moms of old) keep the beer, chips and dip flowing. One tier below that, are the guys whose women get lost for the day. The unlucky guy’s wife has Super Bowl envy and tries to undermine the game. This is why guys watch in herds, so they can effectively shut out any female interference in the time-space warp they game creates. They may pay the price later but at least for the duration of the game it’s all Guyville, all the time.

You ever notice how the Super Bowl bends the normal laws of physics? Let’s say about 70,000 guys are in the stadium, 40 guys are in every sports bar in town and your husband with six guys are in your living room but somehow also in the living room of every other long-suffering wife you know. How can so many guys be everywhere at once unless guys who are normally invisible suddenly materialize? This would be a great day for single women if guys were not conversationally unavailable during the Super Bowl proving another law of physics that when you’re ready, he’s not and when he’s ready, you’re not. It’s a law. You can’t change it.

If men materialize on that day from the ether where they’ve been hiding, they pray for women to dematerialize. Even advertisers wouldn’t mind if we fell off the end of the earth.

But where should we go? What event in a parallel universe could draw such a crowd of women? What happening would make us wish our husbands, children and the world away so we could watch?

I could think of only one event in history that drew the attention of millions of female viewers—the wedding of Princess Diana.

We don’t have royalty but we have Oprah, to whom we pay not taxes but homage. Let’s imagine Oprah announces her engagement to a fabulous athlete. If he were black he could wear white and if he were white he could wear black but we wouldn’t care because he’d be invisible. Ever notice how Cinderella’s prince didn’t have a face? We’d only see Oprah’s crowned queens of Hollywood guests, not their arm candy men. Janet Jackson would be in the wedding party in case she should come through with another explosive revelation at halftime. 

Oprah and her dress would arrive in a carriage drawn by eight white horses. Better yet, she’d drop in from a pumpkin-shaped helicopter, the train of her gown several stories high hanging out the door so that gradually the helicopter would land in a huge splash of silk at the church steps. The big train would have to detach from a smaller train for wearing into the church, of course.

As she entered, Elton John and Little Richard would play fourhanded pipe organ. Oprah’s walk to the altar would take an hour, with commercial breaks, so she’d have ample opportunity to be seen at every possible angle, waving to all in attendance, maybe even hearing a few confessions, absolving a few sins and wiping a tear from her eye in her interview with Katie Couric.

Up front, Billy Graham, the Pope, Deepak Chopra and Reverend Al Sharpton would be waiting along with the groom, the Heisman Trophy winner, Prince What’s-His-Name.

Afterward, greeted by a throng of razzypapas, Oprah and her beau would head to Paris while the guests, festooned with champagne and confetti, would head to Times Square for the equivalent of the post game celebration, not that interesting but we’d hang around anyway to prolong the time before getting back to our children, husbands and dinner preparations.

Oprah’s wedding would only work once, leading me to conclude that guys are simpler. They’ve found a formula that puts them together, front and center for a day. Is it their fault if women suffer from Super Bowl envy?

You are danged if you do and danged if you don’t so you might just as well. If the game is boring, take a day off from your diet and enjoy the munchies.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.