I’ve never been one for signing petitions but, in my never-ending support for pizza and chicken wing consumption, this week I gladly added my name to Frankie Ruggeri’s cause.
Ruggeri is the 16-year-old New Yorker arguing America’s most-watched sporting event, the Super Bowl, should be played on Saturday instead of Sunday. While most Super Bowl fans agree with Ruggeri, especially when we are trudging into work on Monday morning with hangovers and severe indigestion, the teen has taken it a step further.
His petition on change.org has garnered over 70,000 signatures as I write this column and the number will probably climb exponentially before kickoff on Feb. 2. That’s a Sunday, by the way.
One of those signatures is mine. Frankie, I so believe in your cause that I have cast aside my trepidation over signing anything via the web. I won’t even care if my web browser suddenly gets bombarded with Super Bowl-related ads featuring B-list celebrities, robots and chimpanzees. Now that’s passion.
First off, I admire Ruggeri’s tenacity. When I was 16, the only thing I ever petitioned for was unlimited access to the car keys. And I don’t think 30,000 signatures would have changed my dad’s mind. Or 30 million for that matter.
More importantly is that Ruggeri is now the de facto spokesperson for Super Bowl party throwers like me. For the past 10 years, or so, my wife and I have hosted the neighborhood for the Big Game. I usually skip church that morning, for my pot of Cincinnati chili requires eight hours of preparation. Instead of listening to my pastor, I listen to Super Bowl pregame, which, conveniently, begins about eight hours before kickoff.
As the chili simmers, I make assorted dips. There are chicken wings to be picked up at a nearby restaurant or my local grocery store. Pizzas need ordering. Do I have enough ice? Are there gluten-free alternatives? Wait, it’s the Super Bowl. If you have dietary restrictions and are invited to a Super Bowl party, bring your own quinoa. Or stay home.
I live in the Central time zone, which means kickoff commences around 5:30 p.m. Although I encourage the neighbors to come two hours before, and begin feasting on the delicious high-fat, higher-calorie, life-shortening spread I have created, most elect to show up around 5 p.m. Keep in mind this is about four hours before the average working stiff is donning jammies and setting the Monday morning alarm. Therefore, my guests take small portions, rarely go back for seconds and nurse beers, should they choose to drink at all. One year, a neighbor had the audacity to announce she had eaten dinner BEFORE the game. I threatened to dump a bowl of queso dip on her.
The lone exception to this behavior occurred during Super Bowl XLIX or 49, if you were absent during your school’s Roman numeral unit. A blizzard was pummeling Chicago that day. By halftime, Monday school closures had been announced, delighting my kids and their friends, who had commandeered the basement for their own party. Upstairs, my neighbors were sensing a three-day weekend was imminent, seeing that Monday morning commutes would be impossible.
More beers were consumed, the chicken wings disappeared, and I started wondering if additional pizzas were needed, and were Papa John’s delivery vehicles equipped with snow tires. The game’s ending was amazing: With 26 seconds remaining, New England rookie Malcolm Butler made a game-clinching interception at his team’s 1-yard line to seal another Patriot victory; and nearly every guest at my party witnessed it. Most even lingered well after the obligatory Tom Brady interview. Why, it was almost as if the game had taken place on a … SATURDAY!
So, Frankie, please continue your quest, even though you’re unlikely to knock any sense into NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the multi-billion dollar industry he presides over. Party hosts like me want a Saturday game and no leftovers in our fridge.
Trust me, queso dip tastes horrible the next day.
