The 2015 Super Bowl Sunday with my childhood favorite Seattle Seahawks playing for the championship of the American version of football world dominance ended emotionally: I’ve been waiting my whole life for this; how can it get any better? Wait a second…someone just informed me they won this title last year. I guess I’ve only been waiting my whole year for this. How can it get any worse?
For the last two weeks, everyone has maintained smiles in Seattle because of their NFC Championship win. That’s the only reason I was hoping the Seahawks would win the Super Bowl. A happy Seattle makes a happy Ben. If they lost, which they did in the most inconvenient of fashion, I knew I would return to the angry traffic, (whether it be on the road or in a grocery store) the cloudy, rainy, and dismal atmosphere surrounding this beautiful city……depending on the weather, traffic, time and professional athletic success.
A little perspective: I was fortunate enough to spend Super Bowl Sunday morning with my wife, two of my six sisters, and a wheelchair in an Emergency Room occupied by my mother. Inconveniently, after separating her shoulder after a pre Super Bowl Touchdown Dance, our one hundred year old mother didn’t realize her fall would make her recognize all of her children cared more about her than the Super Bowl.
When we showed up at the E.R., and after mom knocked back a couple of pain pills, she looked at me with a bit of confusion. Her eyes locked on mine and she said, “You look just like one of my sons.” Entertaining her, I asked her which son I looked like. (she has seven of them and I am the runt of the litter) “Ben.” Bingo. I pulled a dollar out of my wallet and told her she won the pot. It was a seven to one long shot, but she indeed earned that buck. Three hours later, my mother was released from the hospital. She was not going to miss the forty ninth Super Bowl. Perhaps, she was so driven to watch this game because she missed the first forty eight Super Bowls while making pounds of clam dip for her husband and thirteen children.
Returning to our home in West Seattle, my wife and I watched the Super Bowl in disbelief. Rather than crying because of the Seahawk loss, I instead laughed and decided we needed a vacation, because everyone in Seattle began honking their horns out of anger instead of the twelve man happiness. Where are we heading? We are going to the happiest place on Earth……..New York……a self proclaimed “country” which doesn’t believe the state of Washington exists any other time than football season. It’s just too surly here in Seattle.