What Not To Do

Only eat 14 Hershey’s Kisses in the final quarter of the Seahawks’ NFC Championship game if you enjoy experiencing:

Headache
An odd sensation like you’re carrying three phonebooks on top of your head
Spacing out when your husband walks right by you into the basement, then freaking completely out when you hear a noise downstairs, thinking he’s still upstairs, and standing at the top of the stairs, quaking with anxiety, your finger poised over the 9 on your mobile phone keypad, contemplating barricading yourself in your bathroom
Not being able to fall asleep
Waking up to pee and not falling back asleep because your heart is racing
Puffy eyelids
Sugar hangover

That being said, the game was awesome. I was only going to watch the first few minutes. I knew I wouldn't be able to take it if it was a close game or the Seahawks got behind. But they never trailed. MSH and two friends and I sat very still watching the TV, only moving for the occasional fist-pump for an interception or a first down. The first two times MSH went to the bathroom, Shaun Alexander ran for over ten yards. (We tried to talk him into staying in the bathroom for the rest of the game, but he demurred.) We just sat in a daze as the clock ticked down and Seattle was up 20 points.

If other Seattleites are like me, they’re having a hard time believing that we are competing in the final game of a professional sport. I was afraid they were going to lose yesterday. I certainly didn’t expect them to stomp the competition completely. I don’t remember this sort of feeling since Portland was in the NBA Finals against Chicago in 1992. (I was a huge Trailblazer fan in Junior High. My rice baby for the health class project was named Clyde and wore a jersey. DO NOT let my mention of that championship, in which the northwest team was trounced, and Michael Jordan performed "The Shrug,*" jinx the Seahawks, please!) National sportscasters are going to be saying the word “Seattle” 800% more than usual over the next two weeks. And they’re going to have to give us props. Suck on that, Jimmy Johnson!

That being said, and as you can tell, I like football as much as the next person, these seventeen words neatly sum up what is wrong with America, in my humble opinion:

More Americans watched the Super Bowl last February than bothered to vote in the 2004 presidential election.

Go Seahawks!!!!

*See item 35.