This blog is called “Yankee Skeptic”, and our family is 100% skeptic and believes in critical thinking.  We don’t read our horoscopes, we don’t buy lottery tickets (we know the odds), we have owned a black cat.

There is one time when all that goes out the window.  Football season.

When it comes to football, skepticism is alien to our family.

It runs in the family, my sister in law during Pittsburg Steelers games has to sit in the LUCKY chair, holding her small lucky Steelers football.  It is amazing the Steelers ever lose a game with Anna carefully following her routine.

My cousin has to have a specific football meal for the Ravens. Turkey chili with Pillsbury rolls from a tube.  My husband has been so impressed with the success of turkey chili carrying the Ravens all to the way to the Superbowl with the 2000 season,  that we now have to eat turkey chili every Green Bay Packer game.  I like turkey chili and rolls from a tube, but it seems to be working for the Ravens this year more than the Packers.

I really love  the Green Bay Packers,but sadly I am rarely allowed to watch a game.  This is because they do poorly when I am in the room watching them.  I am only allowed to watch reruns.  This curse of mine was first noticed  during the 2010 season. However my avoiding watching games culminated in the win for Green Bay over the Steelers in the Superbowl on Feb, 6, 2011.

Tube rolls, the secret to any Green Bay victory! It’s SCIENCE!

It should be noted, we were fighting my sister in law and her Steelers.  Lucky chair and toy football against turkey chili, tube rolls and TV avoidance. I was banned from watching the game, and if I even walked into the den to ask a question during a game the Packers played horrible.  It was not until I left the room that things would turn around. I had to be the tipping point needed to win over the faithfully superstitious of Pittsburg.

This was I assumed going to be very easy.  I had unexpected major surgery right before the Super Bowl.  My husband showed up to the hospital every day for the my 2 week “vacation”.  He asked if he could have the Super Bowl off from visiting.  I decided the poor guy needed a break and told him to enjoy the game at home.

My husband asked only one things from me, would I promise not to tune in to the Super Bowl.  Yes, this to a woman that never has missed one Amazing Meeting? This to a woman that has every issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine?  This to a woman that sent her child to intern with the Amazing Randi himself?

Of course I agreed!  This was football, not the real world!

DANGER! Kitty trying to pass gas!

The problem was I was supposed to get up and walk every few hours.  I needed to “get things moving” and my going home depended on my “passing gas” (sorry, but this is the reality of bowel surgery).  If you have ever been stuck in a hospital, you know how badly you just want to GO HOME.  So I was always staggering up and down the hallways, leaning on my wheeled IV stand and clutching a Snuggie around my hospital gown for some butt modesty.

I was staggering as usual, when I noticed that every room had the Super Bowl on.  I decided to stagger to one of the two waiting rooms, where I liked to drop off extra copies of “Skeptic” and “Skeptical Inquirer” people had sent me just for this purpose.  (I found the waiting rooms were filled with copies of religious magazines and “Golf Digest”.  People responded to my internet cry for good magazines to donate).

As I suspected, the waiting room TVs were on the Super Bowl.  My husband could have joined all the families that were visiting grandmothers, uncles, cousins and other recovering relatives. The families seemed to be throwing huge hospital Super Bowl parties, including beer and snacks, right there in the waiting rooms.  A few patients had also tottered down, heck I was even offered a beer when I peeked in.

Avoiding the game was almost impossible.  I decided the Packers deserved my avoiding them (I swear whenever I accidentally looked at the game while walking trying to pass gas, something bad happened to the Packers).  I went to bed, hit the morphine button, and slept away the win.  My husband thanked me later.

Why do we feel we have to follow a superstition when it comes to football?  Why do I continue to make turkey chili and tube rolls even when it does not guarantee  a Packer win?  I don’t know.  I just know, I feel personally responsible for the Packers not being in the Super Bowl this year as I insisted on watching a few games.

My husband may forgive me, eventually.