Refrigerator Copy
Column published the week of January 26,
2009 www.theleeonline.com © 2009, Lee Ostaszewski
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Four Super Bowl Party Super Rules |
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By Lee
Ostaszewski To host a successful Super Bowl party,
especially if your home team is playing in it, the number one, single most important
key to remember is to never – under any circumstances whatsoever – allow your
team to lose the game. This is particularly true if up to that
point your home team has gone 18 and 0 and flirting with a perfect
season. An accomplishment of such historic
magnitude, it ranks right up alongside the discovery of penicillin, men
walking on the moon, and the invention of the alarm clock snooze button. So take a guess as to who hosted last
year’s Super Bowl party in our neighborhood?
Yep, that would be Beth and me.
We hosted Super Bowl XL2 in which the New York Giants defeated the
undefeated Patriots. Away on vacation
a couple of weeks later, I actually worried that one night the neighbors –
still upset - might form an unruly mob and torch our house. Luckily for us that didn’t happen. I guess I can thank their level headedness
for that. Along with the fact that on
most weeknights it’s hard to find the time and energy to form an unruly mob,
what with work the next day and all.
Besides, stores generally don’t stock torches in mid-February. Unruly-mob-torch season doesn’t normally
pick up again here in the Northeast until the end of April, when the weather
turns nicer. I only mention this because I have
friends and relatives living in Granted, no one is expecting the Arizona
Cardinals to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Most of the If, however, you can’t control how the
home team does there are other steps you can take to help make any Super Bowl
party a success. Or, at least, less
sucky. So here is Lee’s Helpful Guide to Hosting a Super, Super Bowl Party Even If In
the End Your Team Loses and Your Guests (and One Guest in Particular) Are
Despondent to the Point of Being Suicidal: |
Super
Rule #1: YOU CAN’T HAVE ENOUGH TV SETS.
My neighbor Scott brought over his DLP projector to show the game on a
bed sheet hung at one end of the living room.
He also brought over a small TV set for the kitchen. Plus we had one in the family room and one
in the basement playroom. It occurred
to me that for total guest convenience, and to win Super Bowl Super Host of
the Decade honors, I should have had one in the bathroom, too. When you think about it, a bathroom TV
is a no-brainer. I’m talking in
general, but even more so on Super Bowl Sunday. It also just occurred to me why the digital
TV conversion was scheduled for after the Super Bowl. Could you imagine the uproar if the
conversion took place on January 31 and people were still trying to figure
out how to get reception and missed the game completely? Talk about your unruly mobs. Super
Rule #2: THE AMOUNT OF FOOD AVAILABLE SHOULD EQUAL, POUND FOR POUND, THE
TOTAL WEIGHT OF YOUR GUESTS. This is a
common Italian mother rule-of-thumb (“I made a ham too, just in case”). It assures that no one goes home hungry and
without gaining the requisite ten pounds of abdominal fat. Also, according to official NFL
regulations, one of the food items must be chili. And you know that boneless buffalo chicken
dip with cream cheese that’s served in a pie plate with tortilla chips? Starting in 2010, that
also will be a requirement. Super
Rule #3: DON’T STILL BE SETTING UP THE SUPER BOWL SQUARES DURING THE
MIDDLE OF THE FIRST QUARTER. Really,
did the game sneak up on you? Two
weeks of wall-to-wall hype wasn’t enough?
Eighteen hours of pre-game shows?
Would you like some more time?
Are you freakin’ kidding me? And Super
Rule #4: ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO BE LOUD AND BOISTEROUS: This way you can’t hear what stupid things
the announcers are saying about your team that will piss you off. Every fan
of every sports team in the world is convinced the TV announcers doing the
game hate their team. Especially when
the team is losing. Which I’m sure yours
won’t be. For the sake of your party,
I hope not. I’m rooting for a win. ■ |