06:30:13 am on
Tuesday 19 Mar 2024

What Super Bowl
Jennifer Flaten

Great play in the first half, right? Wasn’t Beyoncé fantastic? What about that M&Ms commercial? I wouldn’t know. I have children. Consequently, instead of watching anything associated with the “Big Game” I am watching a bunch of puppies romp around a room.

 Oh, and wait it gets better there is also a bunch of cats! Who the hell watches a program filled with cats? At least the dogs do something; the cats just sit there looking insufferably smug. I don’t even have to turn on the television to get that; I can look over and see my own cat wearing that very same expression.

 Plus, we have a puppy; the kids should be romping around with that puppy, not watching other puppies on television. Which I would encourage them to do, but the puppy is sound asleep on the couch and you know what they say about sleeping dogs-especially sleeping dogs that eat my good shoes.

 Anything I do know about the game, I learned by sneaking off to look at the internet while my kids watched the puppy bowl. It is okay, I guess, it’s not like anyone expects me to be on the cutting edge of what happens television wise or movie wise for that matter. I just watched something I rented 3 months ago, from Netflix.

Besides, I am not a huge football fan-I realize this is almost heresy in Packer country, but there I’ve said it. I don’t even like the commercials that much; most of them suffer from a case of trying too hard. My kids doing a fake commercial for their fake cooking show do a better job.


I do, however, like the snacks. Stores want you to buy snacks for the super bowl, so they have many samples out. You could make a meal out of the sample snacks, not that I did that this weekend or anything.

I turned off the puppy bowl before the kids OD'd on cuteness and insisted they do their homework. Moments later, there was a mad rush for the computer. The girls are in middle school and it seems every week there is a new project that requires a power point presentation.

It doesn’t matter what class it is science, health, social studies all of them have required presentations. I don’t know what career the girls will ultimately end up in, but I do know that whatever it is they will be able to make a hell of a power point presentation.

The kids love making the presentations. The girls can spend forty-five minutes deciding whether presentation background should be lavender or if it should be purple. Don’t even get me started about the animation choices! Call me cynical but I question the educational value of you tube video of a squirrel downhill skiing, but it sure looks nice in the presentation.

Problem is the presentations are fun homework, but there is still the un-fun homework to do. If I don’t keep an eye on the girls, they will spend the entire homework time futzing around with the presentation, neglecting their math. Surprise, math is the un-fun homework that no one likes to do. They still do math the old-fashioned way with paper and pencil, gasp, it pales in comparison to power point and you tube.

Jennifer Flaten lives where the local delicacy is fried cheese, Wisconsin. She writes about family life, its amusing or not so amusing moments. "At least it's not another article on global warming," she says. Jennifer bakes a mean banana bread and admits an unusual attraction to balloon animals and cup cakes. Busy preparing for the zombie apocalypse, she stills finds time to write "As I See It," her witty, too often true column. "My urge to write," says Jennifer, "is driven by my love of cupcakes, with sprinkles on top. Who wouldn't write for cupcakes, with sprinkles," she wonders.

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