Super Duper

The commotion is just about over, not that I have been immersed in it.
The supermarket specials on chips and salsa will now have to find another excuse.
Buying a new television will now need a different excuse than The Big Game.
Super Sunday has arrived, and in my house we are trying to be enthusiastic about what this might mean to the people that live here. Chili. That's a good thing. We will be cooking chili. The television will be on for any and all Super events, though as I mentioned before we have pretty solidly avoided the hype.
This was not always the case.
Three years ago, I talked my wife into driving across the bay to visit Super Bowl City. This was the year that San Francisco hosted The Big Game. Nominally. Super Bowl Fifty (L, 50, XXXXX, whatever) was held in Santa Clara, down the road apiece from the traveling circus that unfolded in San Francisco. I stood in line for more than an hour to buy a T-shirt. I did this with the pained consent of my wife who lovingly understood that this would probably be Peyton Manning's last rodeo and it might be a while before I had the slathering attention to pay to this spectacle.
Oh. And we brought my younger brother along.
I know I just got finished saying that I had retired from tormenting my younger brother years before this, but I suppose old habits die hard. I will say that in my fervor to pay attention to all things Bronco and Super Bowl three years ago, I set aside consideration for my own blood relative and dragged my brother to downtown San Francisco to witness the sound and the fury. My brother who is nothing if not affable, came along for the ride and treated the whole thing as a sociological experiment. How much Bud Light advertisement can one set of eyes take in, after all?
The answer would be: A Lot. As it turned out, there was not a lot of team-specific swag to be found in Super Bowl City. There was a lot of stuff that could be dragged home to commemorate the playing of The Big Game in the New Levi's Stadium. In Santa Clara. Forty-five miles away. We stayed until I made it through the Super T-shirt line, and then we weaved our Super way back through the Super crowd to our Super car and headed home.
Happily, that game did not disappoint. The Broncos won and the next day I went to jury duty. Since then, The Broncos haven't won a lot. My interest in the last game of the season has been primarily cosmetic and chili-based. As will be today. I'll find something to get excited about.
Puppy Bowl, anyone?