A Little Competition Is Healthy, Right?

Greetings to all the dudes (and dudettes) over at Dude Write! 

I'm definitely feeling the love from some of my favorite dudes this week, as I got invited to post in Dude Write 10 by not one, but two of Dude Write's handsome dudes.  My honey, Jeff of Jay's Rambling's, was encouraged to ask me to post by his best bud, Wily Guy of It's My Mind.  By encouraged, I mean he suggested, reminded, texted, facebooked, and facebook messaged both of us to remind my honey to invite me to post. 

Maybe Wily Guy had other ladies in mind for his two invites, maybe he just wasn't sure of the etiquette involved in inviting somebody else's girl to the Dude Write dance, maybe he was just being a good friend by making extra sure I got asked to the dance by somebody.  Whatever, I've been asked officially by my honey, and somewhat unofficially badgered to post to Dude Write by Wily Guy.

Today, we faced a bit of a dilemma on the homefront.  For my regular readers, you all know that my beloved honey is a tiny bit passionate about his sports teams.  Usually, his sports fanaticism is not a problem for us.  We both like the same hockey team, the Washington Capitals.  My honey is a Midwesterner whose been transplanted on the East Coast, so his football and baseball preferences lean towards Chicago, which makes things easy.  His Chicago Cubs don't play my Baltimore Orioles unless its interleague play or a World Series game.  He'll watch and even attend O's games with me.  I can't say as I've ever watched a Cubs game with him, though, as I've never seen him watch a Cubs game.


Yes, I am a strange Baltimore/Washington hybrid created in a time when
Baltimore was between football teams and Washington was between baseball teams.


His Chicago Bears don't play my Washington Redskins unless its a playoff game... that was until tonight.  In some strange twist of fate, the NFL decided to have the Chicago Bears host the Washington Redskins in a preseason game.  Could we behave like civilized adults and watch our teams play each other?  My honey assurred me over and over again that we could absolutely watch the game without any trash talking, jeering, or hurt feelings.  I was a bit more skeptical.  The day seemed destined to become a "Rumble in the Rumpus Room", kinda like the Battle of the Beltways when the Skins play the Ravens only much more local.

Pre-Game
The trash talk started before gameday even began, though not from an expected source.  My honey's father, Papa Bear, started texting my honey the night before the big game. 

Papa Bear: "Ready for the war tomorrow?"

Honey Bear: "It's just a preseason game."

Papa Bear: "Redskins fan, Bears fan...war!"

Honey Bear: "Still just a preseason game... IN HD!"

Papa Bear: "So the war can be up close."

Honey Bear: "Exactly! I mean preseason game.  Not war.  I won't even talk smack when da Bears whip the Deadskins."

Papa Bear: "You are no fun."

Honey Bear: "Lainey said it is on like Donkey Kong!!!"

Papa Bear: "Now that's the spirit, Lainey!"

Later in the conversation, Papa Bear even misquoted the football movie, Rudy.  You know the quote, "No one, and I mean NO ONE, comes into our house and pushes us around!"  Well, he texted, "You're not coming into our house..."  Horrible mangling of the quote and sounded very much like trash talk to me, so I promptly told my honey to reply that his father wasn't welcome in our house on game day, either.  His dad then clarified that he was quoting Rudy which inevitably forced my honey to correct his misquotation.  After much arguing about the correct wording of the quote, I removed the ban on Papa Bear entering our house on game day.  This confused Papa Bear further because he didn't want to watch the game at our house.  All I could think was, "Lord, give me strength to get through the next day with these Bears fans."

Game Time
Fifteen minutes before game time my honey disappeared upstairs to change into his Urlacher jersey.  He came down, did a model's turn, and promptly started playing "Bear Down, Chicago Bears" on his blackberry.  Alright, we'd play it that way then.  I pulled up my youtube link to "Hail To The Redskins" for his listening enjoyment while I changed into my Cooley jersey, my Redskins pajama bottoms, and my Redskins socks.  I came down and grabbed my Redskins pillow off the couch as the game began. 

The Bears scored first and my honey celebrated by running to the kitchen to get a beer, which he opened with his Chicago Bears bottle opener.  Thank goodness the batteries in it had died or I'd have had to listen to "Bear Down, Chicago Bears" again when he opened the bottle.  Preseason football is kind of a joke in my opinion.  Neither team really plays all out because they don't want any injuries.  It's mostly an exercise in watching rookies make rookie mistakes.  For example, when somebody missed a block and RGIII coughed up the football on the Bears 8 yard line.  Rookie mistake.  Of course, that mistake led to the Bears scoring again.

At this point, I was getting irritated.  Not because my team wasn't doing so hot, though they weren't, but because my honey was keeping his word.  He was being a civilized citizen of the living room.  He wasn't gloating, smirking, or even singing along to the fight song when his team scored.  I should have been happy, but polite viewing just took the fun out of it.  Plus, had the tables been turned, I knew I would have been acting the fool.

At this point, my honey's mother, Mama Bear, was chiming in via text with mixed emotion statements.

Mama Bear:  "Yay, Bears!  Sorry, Lainey!"

or
Mama Bear: "Did you see that return!!!  Poor Lainey, I feel for her right now."

Talk about your mixed signals.  I guess she was being a mom and supporting both the kids?

By half time, the Bears were clobbering the Skins 20-10 and it was ten o'clock.  We were both tired and preseason football wasn't giving us enough excitement to keep us alert, so we decided to watch the rest of the game in the bedroom.  We watched the Bears score on a 105 yard kick off return and that's the last thing I remember. 

I woke up at one thirty in the morning with the TV still on and no idea how the game ended.  My honey was jolted awake by my disoriented stirrings.  He didn't know who won the game either.  I checked the facebook app on my phone and there was mention of a comeback, but no final score.  My honey checked his ESPN score alerts and discovered that the third string had put in a valient effort to save the Skins, but hadn't succeeded.

It was late, we were tired, and neither of us really cared who'd won.   He didn't really care because "it's only preseason, babe" and I didn't care because I was only half awake.  How anti-climactic!

The question of whether we could watch our football teams play each other and still behave like civilized adults had now been answered.  Yes, we could... as long as it was a preseason game... and his team was winning...and the game started so late that we missed the ending.