Monday, January 9, 2012

The Good Wife's Guide to Sports

After many years of trial-and-failure, I'm pretty sure I've figured out the secret to this sports thing.  I'm going to share it with you, to save you (I'm assuming you're a woman, only my girlfriends give a hoot about my little bloggy-blog anyway) a WHOLE lot of time.

I hate sports.  Ask me what my favorite sport is.  There is NO answer.  Nothing.  They're equally a drain on my brain, which can't decipher anything past a roaring crowd and why commentators always yell.  To me, it's a silly reason for anybody to lose control of their blood pressure, to yell at their televisions, and so I try to ignore the whole thing.

When I met hubs, he described his interest in sports to me as follows:

"I watch very little sports, sometimes football...Monday Night Football, but really only if the Raiders are playing."

So I married him.  And he flipped on me.  Turns out that statement was a trick....all a trick.  Of course, I'm kidding, but he insists that it didn't go down that way, and that since he "watches less sports" than his brother-in-law, that by default he watches "hardly any".  Humph.

Here is what I have learned to keep our little family happy regarding sports, our television, and my realization that it's not going to go anywhere despite my efforts to will it away, pray for rain delays, or implement the Rebecca Romijn-no-longer-Stamos rule she's imposed on new hub Jerry O'Connell to watch games with no sound (genius move).

I now use game day as a time to just sit next to my husband and read, and to occasionally throw out random observations to him that he thinks I would never know.

This takes a bit of work and commitment to make it look easy and thoughtful on your part, but it's worth it to be able to log some seriously long, uninterrupted reading time that mommies sometimes don't take for themselves.  It's sure a far cry from my days of staring blankly at the screen, feeling my brain atrophy as the game clock ticked away.

1)  Pay attention to Chris Berman (at least his voice) so that you can make a mental note of one thing he says, whether you know what it means or not, then repeat it back to your husband during the game.  He will think you came up with it on your own.  Chris Berman is a constant fixture, has an easily identifiable voice without looking up from your book, and his hair NEVER CHANGES....once you know who he is, you're golden.

2)  Because your husband will also likely watch things like SportsCenter, and because they rehash the same 5 things over and over, use this time to make a mental note of a game your husband will be watching....then make an unorthodox observation.  For example, during the Rose Bowl game, the Oregon team had some really shiny helmets.  During the coin toss, the other team (totally forgot at this point who the other team was) won the toss, so Oregon got to pick what direction they would go....after they picked, I made the statement, "Hmm...I think that was a mistake.  They could have used field position and the sun to their advantage with those helmets and picked the other way - they're just going to end up blinding their own players now...I really think they missed a good opportunity there."

Hubs thinks I care about the game = quality time together = I get to read my book = marital bliss.

*Caution here: do NOT get sassy or carried away.  They will know the point at which you are pretending to care.  This can totally blow it for you.  If this happens, I would recommend administering a double dose of hot wings and waiting 15 minutes to see if he remembers.  Boys are pretty easy creatures to keep happy.  Let's all do our part, shall we?  Mine does, after all, put forth a pretty big effort to keep me happy, which I know is not nearly as simple....he knows: Happy Wife = Happy Life.

And this wife is very happy.

1 comment:

  1. Love this Heath....couldn't have said it better myself. Of course both Mother-in-laws...the past one and the current have both said I should find something to keep me busy next to my man while watching said sports....such as Sudoku, crosswords, a book, etc....I wanna PUKE! Sports waste a lot of time...if a game was as long as movie....then I'd be more content...but 3+ hours...c'mon....REALLY!? - Melissa R.

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