I have to watch football ... I can’t get up

In the past three weeks, I’ve shoveled about three tons of dirt, hauled it to my backyard, leveled a quarter of an acre, laid down 175 16-by-16-inch squares for a patio, built a fire pit, set out two pallets of sod and made the stockholders of the closest home improvement chain very happy.

Fortunately my wife has worked alongside me. Unfortunately, she’s a perfectionist, which means that every single one of those 175 patio pavers involved a debate over whether it needed an eighth of an inch more sand on the left or right.

At my ripe old age of 47, three-week stretches like this leave me unable to undertake such athletic endeavors as bending over to pick up a pen off the floor. I’ve decided that until my back is functional again, whatever I drop onto the floor will just get kicked under the sofa — pens, ice, potato chips, my wife’s cat, whatever.

“Why are there pens and chips under the sofa?” my wife will yell sometime next week. “Sadie, what are you doing under here?”

“Face it, baby — your cat’s a hoarder,” I’ll have to inform her. “We’ll either have to get rid of her or get her a reality TV show like ‘Extreme Hoarder Cats from Hell.’ ”

These projects had to be accomplished by this past weekend because football season is here. Yes, it’s the sport I shouldn’t love because it leaves roughly 99 percent of the players brain damaged, but it’s too late for me to un-love football. Besides, have you watched the news in the past couple of years? I’m convinced that 99 percent of all people are brain-damaged. We one-percenters are feeling a little lonely being all smart and normal over here by ourselves.

As a football fan, I intend to sit from now through February and watch football — live college and NFL games, highlights of those games and previews of the next games … all while checking my fantasy teams and the winnings they’ll produce for my bank account, which I’ll use to purchase tickets to sit and watch football in person. Based on my total fantasy winnings from last year, I’ll likely only afford sitting at high school or pee-wee football games.

I’ve awaited the football/sitting season more than ever because since I gave up on the Cobb County Braves a few years ago, I don’t have baseball to get me through the summer. I find NBA games to be dull battles of free throws and timeouts. I only care about golf and tennis when the majors come along. And boxing has been watered down with too many belts. I got dressed for work last week and was shocked to find I’m the current PHBA cruiserweight champion. I had no idea — probably the brain damage from boxing.

But football isn’t just a game. It’s the sounds of clashing shoulder pads and and fight songs. It’s 92,000 people yelling “Roll Tide!” “War Eagle!” or “Go Dawgs, sic ‘em, woof, woof, woof!” in unison. It’s tailgate food and beer commercials. It’s a season. And because Georgia only has two seasons now — two weeks of winter and 50 weeks of summer — we need another season.

And I’m gonna sit down and enjoy it.

“What’s that, Honey? Yes, I know where the ladder is. You need me to do what?”

Oh great. Never mind.

This story was originally published September 4, 2017 at 1:15 PM with the headline "I have to watch football ... I can’t get up."