Woke up this morning to see the thermometer at -17. Of course it didn’t feel nearly that warm with the wind blowing. Thankfully my car started despite not being plugged in all night. Apparently the cold affects film projectors, cause I went to a matinee of Cloverfield but they had to give everyone’s money back when the damn thing wouldn’t run. Place was pretty full too on such a cold day. Either lots of people want to see that movie, or there has been a rash of furnace malfunctions around here and everyone was just trying to get warm for a couple hours.
So my afternoon got all screwed up. No biggie. I’ll just sit here watching the returns from Nevada and South Carolina (our nation marching inexorably toward electing Hillary Clinton the new Corporate-Stooge-in-Chief). Drink lots of coffee. Play some Halo online if I get bored (still rockin’ the old-school Xbox – where the hell is my free game from that week it was off by the way?). Maybe later I’ll pop in Shoot ‘Em Up, which just came from Netflix. Yeah my life sucks.
Oh, but it has not yet achieved perfect suckage – that will happen after tomorrow’s Packers-Giants game, which the Pack will win, sending them to their third Super Bowl in the Brett Favre era. Then it starts. Strolling into the gas station in my Vikings jacket. Some old duffer in his Packers garb. “Look out you don’t get beat up son.” Har-har. And the dudes at the supermarket: “When you gonna get some sense?” As if becoming a Packers fan would somehow represent evidence of good sense.
Yes, it is going to be nasty-cold in Green Bay tomorrow too – under zero by the time the game rolls around I’d guess (I live way farther north; if they were playing up here they’d have to make people sign waivers clearing the team of all liability in the event of death or frostbite-related amputation). This will of course not affect the Packers fans who will mostly be too drunk to notice that their feet have turned to blocks of ice. I don’t know how much it will affect the Giants. All I know is that, when it’s that cold, you can suddenly just lose the will to move. Something comes over you that says, “I know I might die, but I don’t care. I can’t take another step.” The Giants will play their hearts out for as long as they can, but at some point I believe the conditions will sap their strength, their resolve. The Packers, being at home, will have the extra uplift provided by their screaming throngs. It won’t matter if the screaming is from excitement and joy over the game or pain over fingers suddenly snapping off like carrots doused in liquid nitrogen. Down on the field it will all sound the same. It will sound like victory. And the Packers will be in the Super Bowl, and I will get smirked at. It’s okay…I’m used to it.
Packers have no chance against the Patriots anyway. Har-har.