Silver Medal

I just finished writing my fourth post from the last few weeks and unfortunately, because 'we got it like that', my husband was able to talk me down from publishing it. Again. I have been strung so tight lately with stress from situations I have no control over. Stress from situations I've had to deal with personally and stress from worrying over other people’s situations. Needless to say, the last four posts I've written have been bitter and straight-up opinionated on said situations that I have no say in whatsoever. So until I’m a famous author and can get paid for officially offending people, I’ll keep my posts sugary-sweet. Regardless of how I’m dying inside to let out all my thoughts. 

Why do men have such an emotional attachment to football? I mean, I’m obsessed with books, and while yes, I get caught up in characters that I wish were in real-life, I don’t pretend to know them personally. For a week now, my husband has been in a constant state of depression because of Aaron Rodger’s injury and inability to play for the next three weeks. When I say depression, I mean, almost actual tears shed. We've lost four pregnancies and have dwindling hope for a successful one I’m the only one in the relationship who has ugly-cried. Rodgers goes down and we are ready to spend our next paychecks on airfare to Green Bay to support Aaron in his time of healing. It’s not depression anymore. It’s daggone emotional cancer.

Mike sleeps literally twelve hours every night and will set Rudy on fire if the poor dog needs to go out before said hours are up. Yet, he’s up at the crack of Christmas to check his phone for notifications from the Packers on the return of Aaron. I feel like he has used his policeman resources to stalk the man’s doctor’s contact info so he can be reached personally on Aaron’s status. I can’t make this stuff up, people.

Ironically, my husband’s obsession with football played an integral part in how our relationship started in the first place. In 2007, I was working as a front desk clerk at a hotel in town. Mike was a police officer for the town. Because we were the only place open later at night (other than gas stations), the cops would come in and hang out in the lobby. It wasn't uncommon for a select few to come hang out with me nightly until my shift was over. On a Friday night, I stopped by the hotel after a class I had just to see what was going on. (I’m not lying when I say that working at a hotel was the best job ever, so much that I wanted to hang out there even when I wasn't working.) Back then, I drove a new GT Mustang. I parked it in the same spot every day, which was pretty much at the entrance. That particular night, I hung out inside for a while then came out only to realize a K-9 police car had me blocked in. One of my frequent cop visitors (the non-K-9) was parked next to it. I made my way over and was basically “shootin’ the shit” with the cop I knew when I noticed the K-9 cop’s uniform. It was different from the other cops’, like a tactical outfit instead of the dressy one. I said to the K-9 guy and my future husband, “Why is your uniform different from everyone else’s?” and he replied in what I can only describe in a "jerk voice" something a total jerk would say. Ugh. Jerk. Too bad I can't remember what his actual line was. I stood outside of his car, awkwardly, and tried to hang with the conversation.

This K-9 cop was sarcastic, like, over-the-top with the sarcasm, yet I couldn’t help trying to check inside his car for glimpses of his left hand for a ring. I’d always heard his name and even knew he used to work with my mom at the same hotel, but I couldn’t drudge up any current info on him in my brain. And obviously, I'm a girl, and it's in our DNA to be attracted to well...jerks. So the next day at work, I did what any self-respecting female in 2007 would do when she was interested in a man. I My-Space stalked him. Low and behold, I had an email waiting for me when I signed into my account.

The email was a one-liner. “When can I drive your car?” What a jerk. I replied, “When I can drive yours" (meaning the police one). We basically bantered back and forth like this over the next few days. Since the Super Bowl was quickly approaching, one of us came up with the idea that we’d make a bet. If the Colts won, Mike got to drive my car for an entire day. If the Bears won, um, I actually don’t remember even having a prize, so obviously I didn't have much stake in the game. Peyton won and thus, Mike did too. I was school girl giddy the day we planned to meet. Mike says all he remembers was wanting to drive my car...I met him and he drove me to Raleigh for our first official date. I think I said three whole sentences the entire afternoon/night. If you know me, you know it would take a zombie apocalypse to make me shut up for five minutes, therefore, it can be said I wasn't myself that day. I was insanely nervous. He is a smoker, so I think at some point I even tried to smoke a cigarette to be cool like him, but that worked out horribly because I didn't inhale and basically wasted a cig from his pac--which he was obviously not a fan of.

From his emails, I knew he was intelligent because there were hardly any grammar and spelling errors. Aside from teeth, that’s my thing. We spent most of the evening together, silently, and ended the night with not so much as a peck on the lips, and I mean the dry kind that you give your granny. I liked him, but our age difference worried me. He says to this day that he wasn't going to contact me after that date because of how snobby I was. I had a court date for a speeding ticket the following week on Valentine’s Day and I think he texted me to see how it went. I was on another date that night and after that date was over, I texted (is this even the correct tense of "text?!") Mike back and we haven’t STOPPED talking since then. He may not have gotten me to say a word on our first date, but I can promise you, he relishes every opportunity to get me to be quiet now.

I guess this is why I take this unhealthy attachment to a football team and in particularly, a star quarterback, in stride. When the going gets tough for us, (and that's quite frequent) at least we still have each other--baby or not. If it wasn't for a stupid bet on a team, I’d never be where I am today with the person who has helped shape me into what kind of person I am...which is clearly a silver medal to the thirty-something, broken-down quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.