Confession: I did not watch the Packers-Cowboy playoff game yesterday. When it’s a big game I just can’t handle it. I did listen in on the game from another room. Eavesdropping on my family watching the game always makes me smile. Like all good Packers fans, my husband and son really get into the game. It’s a high energy and high volume experience.
Here’s what it sounded like:
“Lacy is dominating the Cowboys!”
“BOOM!”
“They’re all like ‘What the heck?!'”
There was excitement and smiles in their voices, but the joy was short-lived.
“Dammit!”
“It doesn’t look too good, P…They can not stop ’em…”
“I can’t believe the Packers are losing!”
“Are you kidding me?!?!”
“There we go!”
Ups and Downs
Things started to look bad for the Pack and our son was pretty bummed. He walked dejectedly past me, “The game is over…”
I looked at the clock, “P, it’s not over. It’s just 1:20.” The game started at 12:05.
He wasn’t convinced. In fact, he looked depressed, “It’s over! It’s 14-7 and we can’t stop ’em…”
“You know it’s just a game, right?”
“I don’t caaaaaa-aaare!” and then there were tears, “I’m not used to the Packers losing…” He went back to the game to look for reassurance from Dad.
Of course, we now know the Pack turned things around, but it was still a nail biter.
Heading for a Win
“Oh yeah!”
“Just wait we’ll get ’em.”
“Woo hoo!”
“Do something, dude!!!”
“WAH HA HA!”
“Oh! He touched it!”
“Packers got it, P! WOO HOO!”
“Go, Lacy, go!”
“Hit him again.”
“Dammit. Losing again.”
“What are you DOING?!”
“The Packers gotta score!”
“Dammit!”
“Yes!”
“Touchdown!”
“WOO HOO! WOO HOO! WOO HOO!” P came running through the house doing live re-plays of Matthews’ play.
“Miss! Miss! Miss!”
“There we go. Karma, baby.”
“Oh God! Agh! Ohmygoodness!” P giggled as Dad could barely stand the last few minutes of the game. “Oh my God. I’m going to have a heart attack.”
Then the agony was over.
“That’s it. We won! We won!” I believe there were actual tears in my husband’s voice.
Game Recap
I wrote this mostly to capture it for myself, but I suspect something similar plays out in living rooms around the country when your favorite teams play. It’s one of the boys’ preferred ways to spend time together. I wanted to bottle at least a tiny bit of this tradition. Maybe next time I’ll take a view voice recordings to add to the memories vault.
We watch the Packer games with our TV sound off and listen to the local commentators.
The Rock – Larry Mc Carren discusses the good and the bad plays the way we like it. Moving to Utah means many of the games weren’t on tv, but now the west coast can’t ignore the team.
We had our Packer Flag flying and it helped bring the team luck.
That’s great! Keep that flag flying we need all the good luck we can get for this week’s game!
Curt is you, in the other room listening to me. He likes the game but doesn’t live or die by it. I’m a mixture of your P & P. I yell, I swear and then I walk around and moan an hour into the game. But then I clean to distract myself a bit, so my house looks really good by the end of he game. 🙂
Sounds you have come upon the best of both worlds to me.