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Married . WithOUT Children

Heidi Rice

While the majority of us operate on the Gregorian calendar year, established by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, there are others who function on a completely different calculation of time – some of whom are heavily medicated and live in little padded rooms.

Husband-head, for example, has his very own version of when he believes the new year begins, what the most important holidays are and which days of the week he should not be required to go to work. .

“‘TIS THE SEASON!” husband-head cried out in joy recently, waving the sports section of the newspaper around. “The new year has arrived!”



Because it was mid-July – only halfway through the Gregorian calendar and well past the Chinese New Year – I looked at husband-head with concern.

“You been into the spiked egg nog already?” I asked. “We’ve got several more months to go yet. .”



He grinned and pointed to the newspaper. Sure enough, there was a bold headline announcing the beginning of pre-season football.

“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head in denial. “No, no, no. Not football again. Summer is only half over!”

Husband-head did a little end zone happy dance, hardly able to contain his excitement.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like . FOOTBALL!” he sang jubilantly, to tunes the rest of us typically associate with Christmas. “It’s the most, wonderful time . OF THE YEAR!”

With that, he did a little pirouette into the air and practically fell on his face.

“Watch out,” I warned. “You don’t want to pull a Brian Griese and knock yourself out.”

Husband-head had practically been in tears laughing when he’d read about the Bronco’s quarterback falling in his teammate Terrell Davis’ driveway and knocking himself unconscious.

But that’s because husband-head isn’t a Denver Broncos fan – he’s a die-hard Green Bay Packers junkie who insists that his ashes someday be sprinkled over Lambeau Field.

He even dragged me to the Packers training camp one summer on our way home from Wisconsin, where we had been visiting his family.

It took all of about three minutes before I’d had enough watching 6-foot-5, 300-pound men hurl themselves against padded metal bars.

“I wonder if that’s how the idea of slam dancing got started?” I observed.

I looked over at husband-head, who was practically salivating at the scene. .

It’s not that I mind husband-head watching sports on TV all day on Sunday and all night on Mondays for months on end, it’s just that, well . I start to miss him.

“Good-bye honey,” I say every year, giving him a farewell kiss as the first game of the season begins. “Write me sometime . or call.”

I’ve even thought of starting my own support group – “Football Widows Against the Unethical Start of Games Before Summer is Even Over” – or the FWAUSGBSEO.

“It’s the beginning of another six months of football!” husband-head announced, swatting me with the sports section. “After that, it’s the biggest holiday of all – the SUPER BOWL!”

Other important holidays coming in close behind the Super Bowl, for husband-head, are Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day. .

Even Mondays, which husband-head typically hates and thinks should be erased from the calendar altogether, take on a whole new meaning during football season.

“It’s Monday Night At The Football!” he will yell, imitating what my mother calls the program.

For most of us, the dog days of summer are ahead, along with the fall and winter seasons. But for sports fanatics like husband-head, it is the start of a new football year which is not bound by seasonal changes whatsoever.

There hasn’t been a new calendar established since the Gregorian in 1582 A.D. But if there is, it should be called the “Husband-Headonian Calendar.”

New Castle resident Heidi Rice’s column appears every Friday in the Post Independent. Visit her website at http://www.heidirice.com.


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