Supper Bowl Sunday

I've been told that there's a game on, but I don't know anything about that. Well, other than the fact that my husband keeps howling at the television like it just took the last beer. That's the usual sign that something sportif is going on.

That game is the Super Bowl, but I'm more involved in the Supper Bowl. My husband went to the store yesterday and decked the cupboards and the fridge with an array of snack foods -- chips, dips, salsas, popcorn (both regular and puff varieties), crackers, cheese, deli meat for some fancy sammiches I prepared, M&Ms, cookies, soda pop and a half gallon of chocolate milk.

The sandwiches were a piquant blend of cream cheese, garlic salt, chopped scallions, sharp cheddar and a dab of mayonnaise and mustard laid over with thin-sliced ham and then grilled on butter-soaked bread so that the cheeses got all melty. They were so delicious.

After we all finished, Meelyn and Aisling went off to the kitchen to clean things up -- we'd done so much damage in there with our piggish eating that it was either load the dishwasher and wipe the counters or just turn on the oven and light a match, I was past caring -- and my husband and I fell back amongst the sofa cushions, bloated and making little gassy burps.

"If I eat one more bite, I will throw up," my husband promised, speaking very slowly through a clenched jaw.

"I'm thinking that it's not so much about 'throw up' as it is 'spew,'" I remarked wanly, feeling very wary about expending the energy to turn my head to look at him.

Tom Petty was wonderful at half time and we all four joined him in singing "Free Falling," although that song isn't so much a Tom Petty song anymore as it is a Jerry McGuire song. Every time I hear it now, all I can see in my head is Jerry singing in the car when it all comes together ("Show me the mon-aaaaaaaaaaaay!!!"), the windows down, shouting in jubilation and slightly off-key.

Best Commercials: Some car commercial where the car almost hits a squirrel who has chased an acorn onto the road and all the woodland creatures and the woman in the passenger seat are screaming "AaAaaaaAAaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!" Really funny. No squirrels die in the commercial.

Then there's an E*Trade commercial with a baby sitting on camera in front of a computer monitor and talking about what he's going to do with all the extra "ching" he makes from his trades. As it turns out, he rented a clown named BoBo, whose creepiness he seriously underestimated. Very cute.

And then we saw a Budweiser ad about a Clydesdale named Hank. Oh, Hank, you gorgeous boy! We loved your feathery boots and your perky ears.

Worst Commercial: A strange one from Planter's nuts about a girl with a ferocious unibrow dabbing a cashew on her wrists and décolletage and attracting men from all over the place. Eeeuw.

Ugh. I have to go. I think I need a Tums. And maybe some Senokot. At this point, I'm looking forward to Ash Wednesday so that we can all get whipped into shape like "lean teenage greyhounds," as Bridget Jones said.