Author's Note: Wow, it's been a while since I've written something for the Times. I have excuses though (most aren't that great, but involve a LOT of practices), but they're excuses nonetheless. Anyway, I got an external hard drive for Christmas (which I appropriately named "Paul the External Hard Drive"), and while I put putting all my things on it, I found all my Times articles that I had saved . . . and I felt like writing something for it. So . . . here ya go. No guarantees on if I will actually continue writing, however.
Sundays are my absolute favorite days, especially between September and February. It's just something about Sundays that makes me happy. My dad cooks breakfast (usually pancakes, waffles or French toast), my family and I go to Church, and then the rest of the day is extremely relaxing. For my family, anyway. For me . . . not so much.
You see, Sundays are my favorite day for another reason. While my dad likes to watch movies, my sister likes to go shopping with her friends, my brother likes to play outside and my mom cooks dinner usually all day, I'm the one sitting in front of the TV for six hours straight, flipping back and forth between channels 40, 46 and 212.
Assuming you have DirectTV, you know what those channels are. Channel 40 is CBS, 46 is Fox and 212 is nothing but the NFL Network.
You see, I love football. A lot. More than I probably should. I have teams I absolutely love, and I have teams I absolutely hate. I have players that I hate, and wish that they weren't in every commercial in the world. I have players that I love to death. I watch pre-game analysis, the halftime show and the post-game show. Sometimes I even watch reruns of old games.
Nobody in my family loves football the way I do. So the way I got into it was a little . . . interesting.
It was my brother's birthday party about two or three years ago. I was in the 8th grade and I was bored to death. I called my friend, Katrina, and asked her what she was doing. She lazily replied "Watching a game. You?" I told her that I was bored and that I was going to watch it with her, but that she would have to explain things to me. She laughed and agreed.
I turned on the TV, and behold -- a Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Indianapolis Colts game appeared on the screen. It was the second quarter and I really don't remember much of it, except that I couldn't remember who was who, so I called Pittsburgh the "Bumblebees" and the Colts the "Horseys".
When the game was almost over, my mom came in the room and noticed that I was sitting through a whole game without complaining about it. She asked me what the heck I was doing and I told her and she felt my forehead to make sure I didn't have a fever (because I had never watched a game before in my life.)
At the end of the game, Pittsburgh won and I pretty much ate some dinner and went to bed.
The next day, my dad asked me if I wanted to know about the "ins and outs" of football, and I agreed. He explained to me about first downs, field goals, punting and some other basic rules. The next Sunday, I sat down to watch another Pittsburgh game (I can't remember who they were playing), and I decided that if they won that game, they would be my "favorite team."
Lo and behold, they won. And that year they went to the Superbowl (XL) and played the Seattle Seahawks. They won that, too.
Now, three years later, I own two Steelers' shirts and a hat. I wear them on game days and yeah, I enjoy myself. For Christmas this year, my mom bought me a Terrible Towel. (For those of you who don't know, a Terrible Towel is a bright yellow towel that Pittsburgh fans wave to pep up the team.) I wave mine during touchdowns. For my birthday this year, I'm getting a team jersey, either number 7 ("Big Ben" Roethlisberger) or number 43 (Troy Polamalu). I'm also getting one of those window stickers for my car.
Yes, I'm a huge (H-U-G-E) fan of Pittsburgh.
But, that's not all . . .
I'm also a fan of the New England Patriots, even though I have no apparel to prove it. I became a fan of them last year, when they had a perfect regular season standing. And then they had to go to the Superbowl and the New York Giants decided to play the game in the fourth quarter. Needless to say, I was screaming at my TV.
A couple months ago, my friend Brandon (who is a huge New England fan) and I were talking football on a bus coming home from a band trip. He said that New England would just plainly crush Pittsburgh in their upcoming game. I told him that there was no freaking way. He just laughed.
Yeah, Pittsburgh did win that game, 33 to 10. I still make fun about it to him to this day. :D
Like I said earlier, I have teams that I absolutely hate. Can you imagine who they are? None other than the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Giants. I have no good reason, except for the small fact that I absolutely despise the Manning brothers. (The Manning brothers (Peyton and Eli) are quarterbacks for the Colts and the Giants.) I suppose you could say that I don't like Indianapolis because they lost the first game I watched, and I don't like New York because the actually defeated New England, but I dunno . . . Either way, I don't like 'em.
This season, I've watched almost every Pittsburgh game, and I've been extremely excited for the AFC Championship, which was last weekend. I wore my shirt and hat and waved my towel like a total idiot in my living room. Steve, another friend of mine and another huge Pittsburgh fan, actually had tickets to the game. But his dad forgot to get plane tickets, so they didn't go. It was a sad day that Thursday when Steve realized that.
So . . . I'm super excited for Superbowl XLIII, where the Arizona Cardinals will forget how to play football and Pittsburgh will crush them.
This is Kaila, going to . . . bed, actually.
(Breathe in say goodbye, the saddest song I'll ever write for anyone, anytime . . .)
