Super Bowl… Is About Food!

So I’m supposed to have this post off. Walter Bego is supposed to be writing this post! I’m supposed to be lying back on a friend’s couch, eating whatever I can find from his cupboards, and wishing he’d get satellite, or cable, or something that gets more than 2 channels on his TV.

But Walter tells me he doesn’t want to write this post. 

 He says that he’s a Patriot’s fan and he feels deflated – then he laughs. I ask him what that’s supposed to mean, and he tells me a sports fan would get it.

So now I’m supposed to pick the Super Bowl?

“No,” he says, “a deal is a deal - 

Patriots 37

Sea Hawks 25

Well that was anti-climatic. I guess I could end the post here.

Can’t do it. So I asked Nick, my co-worker at Amalgamated Monster what he liked best about the Super Bowl.

“The food,” he answered.

“Oh,” I said with relief. I would have been completely lost if he talked about the half-back toggle post wiggle with a twist,

 but food I could relate to.

“My grandmother goes to town,” he said. “She makes all kinds of stuff – chicken wings, cheese cubes, salsa, cheese cake brownies, little funny things with pretzels and M&Ms.”

“Doesn’t she do that other times as well?”

Nick scratched his head and then stopped. It looked too much like he was thinking. Frederick the Bloody and the management of Amalgamated Monster fine all employees caught thinking on the job.

“There is one thing,” said Nick with as thoughtless an expression on his face as he could manage, “that she makes only during the Super Bowl.”

“What’s that?”

“Little smokies.”

My mouth started watering at the utterance of those two magic words. Little smokies were the ying and yang of snack food – a treat that tastes the ultimate good while looking the ultimate disgusting.

“Yeah,” I said to Nick, looking stupid without even having to make an effort. “You’re right – I never see little smokies unless I get invited to a Super Bowl party.”

“And they’re always gone before kick-off,” Nick added.

“So why don’t they show up the rest of the year?” I asked.

“Because they’re always gone before kick-off.” Nick repeated. “It doesn’t matter how many packages of little smokies my grandmother buys – everybody always eats them first while she’s busy putting everything out. I don’t think Grandma’s ever eaten a little smokie.”

I wanted to make some erudite reference to Dante’s Inferno, but my mind went blank – which was a good thing because Frederick the Bloody was staring right at me.

“That’s not fair,” I said as stupidly as possible.

“Uh-huh,” Nick agreed sounding a bit like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.

We must have passed the stupid test because Frederick the Bloody moved on to lower the IQ in another part of the plant.

“Little smokies,” I mused. “I have to get myself invited to a Super Bowl party.”

Nick was conspicuously silent the rest of the day.

So, how do you keep people from eating all the little smokies before kickoff? I asked that question of a select panel of readers. Sally Q. Broqenbuttom of Hackensack New Jersey responded:

“I just put my plate of little smokies in my cat, Oscar’s litter box.”

Thank you for the visual, Sally.

Maybe I won’t miss being invited to a party so much this year - as long a Walter Bego doesn't get invited either.

I guess there are more disgusting eating themes.  Squeamish Alert!