Since we all but stopped celebrating Halloween and New Year's Eve,† the Super Bowl is the Grand Poobah of all parties, the laissez le bon temps roulette‡ of the social season.
That's Brother and Eric, laissezing le bon temps roulette
To refresh your memory, we have been doing this at Matt's house since before he was married.% Next year will be our 20th anniversary.§ It's a wonder we all lived through past Super Bowl parties to reach this milestone.¶
[SUMMARY: C'est la guerre... and it has been a hell of a guerre.]
We have traditions.
We have the National Anthem Chug.# We have jello shots.†† We have cigars.‡‡ We have the Lonely Guy Hour.§§ And we have Matt wearing alternative headgear.¶¶
Matt and Shanny - two of my favourite guys in the world
Matt and Bill##
Matt and Connie
[SUMMARY: Fiddler on the Roof got nothin' on us.]
I may never have mentioned it, but as an oil brat,††† we moved like the military when I was a kid. At least every three years, whether we needed it or not. Brother went from first grade through high school with the same kids. I went to seven different elementary schools.‡‡‡
The people you see in the pictures above have been my friends for nearly 30 years.§§§ To me, that's really something.
[SUMMARY: Awwwww...]
And the fact that we're all still alive I think proves miracles happen.¶¶¶
Saint points?###
^FOOTNOTE (careted): I am NOT easy. Anymore.
†FOOTNOTE (crossed): Damned kids.
‡FOOTNOTE (double-crossed): A reminder: Lent is just around the corner!
%FOOTNOTE (percented): Long live the Elks: Beer, Babes and Brotherhood.
§FOOTNOTE (swerved): I will be preparing my special Chex Mix with M&Ms, as always, only I will be using personalised M&Ms with pictures and beer references on them.
¶FOOTNOTE (paragraphed): Cornflakes in beer for Sunday breakfast, 24-hour Shot Clock (one shot every hour until kick-off), 15-minute war (full contact, drunken football at halftime)...
#FOOTNOTE (pounded): Wherein all contestants chug cheap beer (hence the empty Hamm's case prominently displayed in the Matt in the Hat gallery). The idea is ostensibly to start when the anthem starts and finish with the Home of the Brave, only by "by the dawn's early light," it's become a race. When we're done, we throw our cans with mighty force against the nearest available wall.
††FOOTNOTE (ddouble-ccrossed): Amy is now in charge of making Jello shots, which are downed with each score. Or when we want. Now that 'most everybody has kids, we've had to educate them in good Jello and bad Jello (conversation with Dr. Doom: "AntiM, where's the Jello?" "You know you can't have any of that stuff, right?" "Yes, but I just want to SEE it."). The Jello shots were so stout this year, I suggested that if any of the kids scraped a knee, we could slap a Jello shot on the wound, which would both seal it and disinfect it.
‡‡FOOTNOTE (doubble-crossssed): Now, now... sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
§§FOOTNOTE (whip that bottle 'round, pass 'er 'round again): Which started as a melodramatic bonding experience amongst the lonely guys (duh). Now the only vestige of the original Lonely Guy Hour is the passing of many, many bottles of many, many colours of Boone's Farm "wine."
¶¶FOOTNOTE (stick men with hats, how appropriate): I feel compelled, since Matt is a school board president, to point out that 1) he did not put the Hamm's hat on his head; someone did that for him, and 2) that is a big ol' cup of water he's drinking in that last photo.
##FOOTNOTE (what IS this number?): Bill's last name is Prince. I put he and Amy in my phone as Prince, which meant I had a weird little interlude months later where I tried to remember why I had Prince's number in my phone -- or why I thought I had Prince's number.
†††FOOTNOTE (three landmen, all in a row): It's not just me. It's congenital. Dad, Brother and I all landman.
‡‡‡FOOTNOTE (a little off track): When I was five, public schools in our city (Midland, Texas) didn't offer kindergarten, so everbody went to private kindergartens. That "seven" doesn't include either the Catholic kindergarten I ended up at (we are not Catholic) nor the kindergarten I got kicked out of.
§§§FOOTNOTE (to everything turn, turn turn): And someone still has the negatives, so I have to be nice.
¶¶¶FOOTNOTE (riot police): Someday I'll tell you about the malatov cocktails and the SWAT team.
###FOOTNOTE (in for a penny, in for three pounds): I graduated from college with 224 credit hours not because I stayed in school for ten years, not because I took classes year-round... no, I graduated with 224 credit hours because I negotiated credit hours for every single thing I did in the four years I was in college -- all my summer jobs, working at the radio station, writing for the newspaper, living behind a laundromat... If anybody's going to weasel out a few extra saint points, it's me.
FOOTNOTES: 609 words
ACTUAL POST: 229 words
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