I was walking into our local post office this past Monday, after covering the weekly county commissioners' meeting for the newspaper where I work, when an acquaintance stopped me at the front door and shook my hand in greeting. "So what did you think of that game yesterday?" he asked.

"Game?" I asked. "What game?"

He looked at me like I was something that had just crawled out from some deep, dank cave in one of those campy old B movies my brothers and I used to watch when we were kids. "What do you mean, what game?" he asked incredulously. "The Super Bowl, for Pete's Sake!"

"Oh," I responded. "Didn't watch it."

For a moment I really thought his eyes might actually bug straight out of their sockets. "You didn't watch it," he repeated, as if trying to make himself believe that he had heard me correctly. Then he repeated it again, this time in the form of a question. "You didn't watch it?"

I answered with a nod. "That's right," I told him. "Didn't watch it. Never do."

Obviously he still couldn't believe his ears. "You never watch the Super Bowl?" he inquired.

"Well, okay, that's not quite entirely accurate," I admitted. "I did see a few minutes of the game back in 1986, the year the Chicago Bears won. But I only saw that because I happened to stop by a friend's house to visit, and he insisted on watching. To be honest, I was bored to tears and made a point of getting out of there the first chance I got.

"Heck, the only reason I even know Chicago won that year is because I was living near Chicago at the time and it was all anybody wanted to talk about. I mean, goodness, a space shuttle blows up and an ocean liner sinks near New Zealand and the presidents of Haiti and the Philippines both go into exile, but what's the constant topic of discussion? A football game. Talk about being stuck in a rut..."

Slowly my acquaintance's expression began to change from one of shock to something slightly more akin to moral outrage. "You don't like football?" he queried.

"I didn't say that," I told him. "I used to really enjoy playing neighborhood games with my buddies in the old lot next to Open Bible Church back home when I was a kid. I support the home team when it comes to high school football; I took my family to watch Tishomingo play for the state championship back in '99, and was as unhappy as anybody when Heritage Hall came away with the win. To some degree I don't even mind college football all that much - although I admit I'll probably never understand the mania that most fans tend to exhibit.

"But I do not care for professional football. For that matter, I've never been much of fan of professional sports in general. It's a little hard for me to get excited about a bunch of overhyped athletes raking in millions of dollars for playing games for a few days or weeks out of the year when I know people who knock themselves out working at real jobs every day and yet can barely afford to feed their families or pay their bills."

He shook his head and tried a different tack. "But New Orleans won," he said. "Can't even you find some sense of happiness in what that represents after everything the people of that city have been through the past few years."

"Sure I can," I told him. "Far be it from me to begrudge a few moments of celebration to a beleaguered city who could certainly use the boost in morale. Heaven knows if anybody has needed that kind of boost in recent years, it has been the city of New Orleans.

"But since you brought it up, maybe you can answer a question for me. Once this symbolic victory has been set down in the record books and all the parades and talk show appearances have run their course and the winning quarterback has made good on his obligatory cross-promotional vow to go to Disney World, are the people who live in that beleaguered city really any closer to recovering what they lost?"

I was pretty sure at that point that my comments were falling on deaf ears. Either that, or he just didn't get it. "But it's the SUPER BOWL, man!" the fellow exclaimed. "Not watching it seems almost... well, un-American."

I have to admit, that comment got my dander up. "Why?" I demanded. "Because my tastes in entertainment are different than yours? Is there some loyalty oath I never learned about in school that says I can't be a good citizen unless I sit in front of the TV for a certain number of Sundays every year, chugging beer and eating pretzels and watching a bunch of guys chasing a funny-shaped ball back and forth?" I paused for a second and added, "By the way, I don't like beer or pretzels, either. Should that be cause for permanent exile?"

At that point the gentleman gave up and walked off, muttering something under his breath about how much of a nut he thought me to be. Well, that's okay. I've heard it before. No doubt I'll hear it again.

For what it's worth: Congratulations, New Orleans. I'm happy for you. Really.

But in the end it IS only a game, you know...

(Copyright 2010, by John A. Small)