Sports and Laundry
ESPN’s Sports Center was playing in the coin laundry the other day. We’d gone to the bank while the clothes were washing. When we returned Sport’s Center was on and my husband loudly declared, “This is the best laundry ever! The other men in the place agreed.
As we put our clothes in the dryers, my husband kept one eye on the television. I don’t think he heard a single thing I said to him.
I watched one of the men in the laundry try to fold his clothes. His head was turned up to the screen–his eyes fixed. He ended up kind of balling up his clothes into twisted heaps instead of folding them because he couldn’t pay enough attention to what he was doing.
I decided to try to watch some of Sports Center as we waited for the clothes to dry. It was turned up too loud for me to be able to comprehend anything I tried to read in the newspaper. They claim that men don’t talk as much as women–I don’t believe that’s true, my father and my husband both have a tendency to talk and talk–but when it comes to sports men can sure ramble on and on and on. On the show, they’d show a play and then everyone on the show made comments about it. Never mind, that most of them seemed to say pretty much the same thing. They all took their turns to talk and talk and talk. How much can you possible say about a football game? Apparently, one game can be thoroughly discussed for hours on end.
Once the football part of Sports Center was over and they were discussing baseball, the level of excitement waned and the men in the laundry were able to concentrate on folding clothes or talking to their wives.
I don’t understand what’s so great about football. It doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t want to play it or watch others play it. I certainly don’t want to talk about it or watch others talk about it. If you want to spend three hours watching a game and another couple of hours listening to people talk about the game you just watched, that’s your business. Everyone has a vice. Some people smoke. Some drink. Some people watch football. Some people smoke and drink while watching football.
