I just want to watch a football game.

I was conflicted about watching the Superbowl this year. Everything that we watch or hear now has an agenda of some sort attached to it.

I’m tired of hearing and watching about how much people hate the president. We get it. We get that you despise the very air that he breathes in. It’s acknowledged. We hear you VERY loud and clear. We hear you from our radios, our TVs and anything with a screen or speaker on it.  I am pretty sure that my glass of orange juice muttered something about how much it despises the president over breakfast one morning.

I also am aware that hemorrhoid surgery is probably painful but I don’t want to hear it, see it or be made aware of it constantly and every waking moment of my short life. Enough already.

And sometimes, I think if I hear one more push to “empower” one more person or section of persons, well I think I’ll just have to take a knee.

I just want to watch a good football game with some funny ads about beer or Doritos.  Is that so much to ask? I wanna see Hail Mary’s at the last second, whether it’s received or not. And there is something simply inspiring to watch a swarthy little guy kick a football with precise skills sufficient that the ball spins on itself through the air and successfully splits the distance between 2 tall yellow uprights.

And yes, I wanna see the cheerleaders do the job that they chose to do without hearing about the wretched objectification of women in 2018.

We just want to enjoy life for a few hours without being made to feel guilty.

Life can be hard. I want to escape sometime and fall into a TV. And my escape now has begun to attempt to make me feel guilt about my gender, the color of my skin or that I expect people to stand for the National Anthem.

I just want to watch a football game where the ginormous and skilled bodies of trained men try to out-run, out-pass and out-tackle the other. And sometimes it’s exciting to watch them just outright plow over the other ginormous bodies of their opponents.

To twist Cyndi’s lyrics, sometimes ‘Guys Just Want To Have Fun’. And you know what people??…that’s ok! It’s ok to have fun without a cause flung at you.

Now don’t get me wrong. We have the right to exercise our causes and our passions. But we also should have the right to simply watch something on television without someone protesting, pushing or ranting.

I decided to risk it. My family all gathered here at my home for the Superbowl this year and it was indeed some great family fun.

Watch a flu-ailing Pink do her best to belt out our beloved National Anthem while people stood.

The ads were funny. My favorites were the Tide ads mainly because I’m a huge fan of Hopper. And HERE.

My other favorite was the beer commercial where they canned and sent water instead of beer when water was needed in a disaster. Delivering water to people in a crisis is humanity at it’s best and that’s what the world needs to see more of rather than a group of people just wanting to show savage and outright anger that is conveniently presented as a ’cause’.

We spent a few hours free of all of the hatred and anger as we watched the Patriots fall to the Eagles 41-33.  No politically correct second place or participation trophies were awarded. There was one clear winner. The way it should be.

We watched some awkward and unsuccessful Hail Mary’s. We ate as unhealthy as we possibly could without a defibrillator handy.

There were many OBVIOUS military encouragements which included the most beloved and talented Mr. Timberlake wearing a modernistic camo suit thingy. Halfway through his routine, I had to inquire as to his age. He’s energetic performance is still there but not with quite the punch he had with Ms. Jackson 14 years ago. But, then again, my performance is not what it was then either.

And with my wife, our kids, our son in law and our grandogs here, we laughed. We cheered. We talked about the good things in life. Not intentionally, it just happened. The positive vibrations possibly occurred because there weren’t any pushy or insidious commercials in the background to spur any conversations about illegals, borders, statues or pay scales.

So, at the end of it all, I’m reconciled that we did the right thing. It was a night well spent in front of the TV. In fact, my hopes are that it’s a trend. Perhaps other TV shows will see that we respond and that we interact when we are not having someone’s agendas shoved down our throats. Probably not going to happen, but we can hope that they see.

Because in 2018 we can, and we do, exercise OUR right to flip off the Oscars with their expected agendas to smash in our faces and we watch ourselves some EVEN Stranger Things on Netflix.

So we enjoyed our night in our living room watching an American past time without drama or causes flung at us and I got what I had wanted for awhile;

I got to watch a most excellent football game without being made to think a lot or feel guilty.

And my friends, that’s absolutely ok to do that.

Also, just in case that you were wondering, JT is a very spry 37.

That’s the best that I can tell about it.

~Mark  

More Hopper Tide Ad. 🙂