What I Love About Sunday

In most houses around my parts, Sunday is a reverent day for going to church in the morning, eating dinner with every relative ever, and going fishing with grandpa after. Or some quaint little over-simplified version of a real-life country song.

Not in my house.

Sunday is indeed reverent in my household, but for very different reasons. Sunday is for yelling curse words at the tv you played paper-rock-scissors for when your team fumbles at the 10 yard line.

Plenty of people watch football on Sunday, but few watch football like my mother. Passed down to her through the generations of crazed fans, she's amassed quite the collection of superstitious memorabilia. In front of the tv sits a little brass pig. An innocent brass pig who gets blamed for every Redskin screw up. The pig is required to face whichever way the Redskins happen to be going down the field, and if the pig is not turned at the appropriate times, doom is certain.

This year, the brass pig got a companion in the form of a tinier rubber pig. I used to play with this little pig when I was little. Grandma would fool me into thinking the pig could magically move around by itself. Mom apparently still believes in this magic. He stands guard beside it's senior pig and faces the right way as well, oinking the Redskins to a winning season.

When we lived in Texas, our neighbors found Mom's football fanaticism quite amusing and their teenage son collected those little plastic football helmets. He had an extra Redskin one, so he granted it to Brass Pig. The pig has worn his helmet every year until this year. Last year was so abysmal, Mom decided it must've been the helmet's fault, so now the helmet sits on a foam golfball (with a face) mounted a golf tee. I'm not sure why, but apparently this is very vital to offensive success.

Many years ago, Dad, my brother, and I thought it would be nice to get Mom a Redskins jersey. We picked her favorite version of the colors (the white home jersey version) and got our last name printed on the back. We thought this was a nice gesture.

She wears this jersey during every game. When they lose, it gets violently ripped off and thrown across the room, sliding down the wall at a rate unproportional to its weight. After the initial anger fades, she then throws it into the washing machine, ignoring all washing labels, because the "loss must be purged."

Also, after a loss, the jersey gets put on time out and one of the random, hideously ugly 1980's Redskin apparel is brought out. And then gets thrown across the room and the jersey is re-donned.

This are only a few of the many superstitions, and they don't really directly effect the other members of the house. But her need to make everything exactly as it was during the end of the last winning game does.

If she was watching it on the big television in the living room, she feels she must watch it here this time. But dear Dad also wants to watch his game (which his Colts invariably have a better chance of winning than the Redskins ever do, bless their hearts) and it's only fair that they alternate tv's. He even suggests switching at halftime. She will not budge, as steadfast as a real linebacker.

I'm afraid to enter the living room while the game is on. Often violent strings of cursing that even a sailor would shudder at come echoing up the steps, or a trademark way of clapping with unnatural rapidity that indicates some sort of primal pleasure when Redskins players inflict debilitating injury on Cowboys players. I am sure to get any food I may need during the duration of the game before it comes on, because to pass through her and tv during the game is the eighth of the seven deadly sins.

So while many families eat a nice dinner together and smile politely and go fishing, I cower in my bedroom, scarred of the wrath of a disappointed Redskins fan.