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Football and Tone
Or, what my dog was trying to tell me
I am an unabashed college football fan, or more particularly, an Alabama Crimson Tide fan. Yesterday, Alabama and Florida played an epic game in Florida’s “Swamp,” and given the humidity there, swamp lived up to the description.
Here at our house, in the cool of the air conditioned evening, the only sweltering going on was in my nerves as Florida crept closer and closer to snatching a W away from Bama. A missed extra point, a failed two-point conversion, and the final, 31–29, Alabama. All good.
Except.
My dog, Max, loves to play with his rubberized nerf football — usually, these are games of keep away and tug of war. Believe it or not, he doesn’t understand what these 21-year old guys on TV are up to. And really, he doesn’t care either.
What he does care about is me, and what I’m up to. And during games like these, what I’m up to is sending out body language signals like,
“Don’t fuck with me.”
You know, arms crossed over my chest, one or both legs shaking (could be that the extra 20 ounces of coffee didn’t help in that configuration), and on occasion, some very harsh tones along the lines of,
“Our defense looks like Swiss cheese!”