As we turn our attention to the goodly American tradition of the Super Bowl, some thoughts come to mind.  Did I just use the word goodly?  Yay for me!

Actually, I could give a flying frog’s fart about this particular game, and if you held me at knifepoint I doubt I could come up with which teams are even playing in this year’s concussion-fest.  All I know is that I’m not going to get to see something as awesome as Janet Jackson’s boob with that weird jewelry attached to it falling out of her shirt.  That’s a once in a lifetime thing.  I wish I had videotaped it. 

I do like me some buffalo wings and nachos, though. 

And if you invite me to your party, I will bring the beer and some fry sauce.

I digress. 

Anyhow, today you will get a glimpse into the rambling thought process of a mom who is still sitting in her maternity sleep top with saggy braless fun bags and a cold cup of coffee while thinking about the Super Bowl.  They say that one thing leads to another, and that is definitely true when I conjure up Super Bowl memories. 

The crappy thing about the Super Bowl is that it is on a Sunday.  SUNDAY??  What worse day could there be?  Not that this really matters to me anymore, but back when I was working full-time, a big beer party on a Sunday afternoon that sometimes stretches into evening was a disaster waiting to happen. 

Case in point:  The year that Janet Jackson’s boob popped out of her top.  I was shit-faced drunk, but I remember that boobie at halftime, and I remember turning to the people in my living room screeching, “DID YOU SEE THAT??  DID YOU SEE THAT??  WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT THING ON HER TIT?”

I can’t remember if I got any answers.  Because at this point I had already chugged almost three-quarters of a box (yes, a BOX) of cheap white wine and was stumbling back to the kitchen to inform my girlfriends of the partially naked Jackson on TV.  Later that night, I thought it was really funny to put my friend’s children on my shoulders and run batshit through the house while they screamed with laughter.  Now that I think about it, they might have been screaming in terror.  This was before I had my own kids…which if I did have my own, I may have had the foresight to know better than to pull that little stunt. 

Please God, never let me encounter a crazy wasted lady at a Super Bowl party that wants to help my baby pretend like she is flying.

Now, this leads back to that Sunday party problem.  My friends all filtered out that night around 8pm, and I vaguely recall that there was a premiere of Survivor coming on right after the Super Bowl.  This excited me greatly.  Brad was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and he heard me open the refrigerator door and the sound of GLUG GLUG GLUG.  “Piper,” he calls, “I don’t think you need another glass of that wine!”

I stood swaying at the fridge door and shot him the stink eye.  “DON’T YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO!  YOU’RE NOT MY DADDY.”  Okie accent and all.

Brad shrugged his shoulders, went to bed, and thirty minutes later I was wrapped around the toilet heaving up my wine and Doritos.  The next morning was one of those nightmares where your alarm goes off and you are praying to God that you are still dreaming, or that a magical teacher of the deaf will pop into your classroom and teach your 6th grade class, and that the Taco Bell fairy will deliver you a large icy Pepsi and at least five taco supremes with some Mexi-fry tater tot things.  And fry sauce.  In your bed.

I made it down to work.  Shaking.  Dizzy.  I puked three times in the school bathroom by 9:30am and told everyone I had the worst hangover of my life stomach flu.  I desperately called the whole sub list and FINALLY found someone who agreed to come in at lunchtime.  I left the substitute some worksheets, a movie, and a note telling her just to make sure the kids were not playing with matches or impregnating each other.  I hightailed it for Taco Bell and my soft bed and the bottle of Tylenol.

This is not the only time when Piper has unfurled her freak flag and let it fly.  It comes out at random times…like on a Sunday afternoon or when I am still nursing a nine month old baby and feel house-bound.  I can’t tell you that there is any particular pattern, the only trend I can come up with is that I have given myself enough time so the memory of the heinous hangover has faded enough for me to get ridiculous all over again. 

When I think of ridiculous, my mind drifts to these times… 

1) The night in high school when we were partying with the college boys who lived in an apartment down the block.  By about one o’clock I had found a neighbor’s garden hose and was outside throwing it up into their tree while speaking Spanish and laughing my ass off.  At that moment, I reallythought I could speak Spanish.  It probably sounded more like I was speaking in tongues.  The only way my friends peeled me away from that hose lasso was to coerce me into a jeep with the promise of a meal at Bill and Nada’s diner.  This meal, as I remember it, consisted of unnaturally orange pancakes, a grilled cheese, french fries, and a dish of strawberry ice cream.  I’m not sure if I ordered in Spanish or not.  I do know that I left with strawberry ice cream all over my face, muttering, “No mas cervezas.”

2)  Then there’s the day I went with a post-college roommate to Port O’ Call on a Sunday morning – to watch football and eat lunch – and ended up at home six hours later to come up with the trailblazing idea of stripping down and running around the house together naked.  Three laps.  In February.  On a busy street in the Avenues.  The landlord and her friends downstairs got a nice eyeful when my roommate slipped right in front of their door and I was bending over her trying to haul her bare ass up off the ground and drag her back to our place.  This was waaay back before bikini waxes.  Classy! 

3)  Then we move on to the time when Beatty was nine months old and I went to a party at a friend of a friend’s – people I barely knew – and ended up laying in their kitchen, hysterically laughing at god knows what, my friend’s husband egging me on…then scrambling over on all fours to a SOBER DOCTOR who was on call, whom I had just barely met, and biting him on the ass while growling like a dog.  Luckily he has a very nice wife and a forgiving heart, because we are actually friends with this couple now.  This is one of those times when the next morning you are wretchedly sick and tearful because you are nursing your baby with boozy poisonous milk and you feel like a bad mommy because you can’t do anything except lay on the carpet groaning under the ceiling fan and dry heave every thirty minutes.  I’m *sure* this has never happened to you.  Actually, part of me hopes it has.

I bring these episode up not so much to shock, or disgust, but to remind myself this Super Bowl Sunday that life sometimes gets out of hand when you mix beer and jello shots and a woman who feels she hasn’t garnered enough attention in the last six months.  I will remind myself that hangovers suck, and they suck DOUBLY BAD when you have small children asking you to feed them breakfast or turn on the Wii or wipe their butts.  They can’t drive and get you McNuggets, and they definitely can’t let you lay in your bed with the room darkened.

For the next little while, I dutifully intend to keep my freak flag at half-mast.