Super Bowl XXXIX: The Untold Story

Somebody call John Forsythe, we've got a dynasty on our hands. I'm sure you've heard all the stories by now. While Donovan McNabb is crying in his soup over poor clock management, the New England Patriots are celebrating their third Super Bowl victory in four years and are 9-0 in the post season. And let me be the one billionth person to remind you they did all this in an age of parity and free agency. Bill Belichick now has a better post season record than Vince Lombardi, although if you mention it to him he'll instantly change the subject and possibly have you killed. Adam Vinatieri kicked yet another game winning field goal, although this time he did it with about eight minutes left instead of eight seconds. There were no sightings of Paul McCartney's saggy old man nipples. Commercials featuring chimps continued to be comedic gold. Terrell Owens proved his critics wrong by catching nine passes for 122 yards. Conversely, Freddie Michtell had one meaningless catch and was last seen with his foot in his mouth and his hands in a woodchipper. The Eagles kept it close, but basically, nothing unexpected happened Sunday night. Except for Charlie Daniels getting up on stage with the Black Eyed Peas.

But the Super Bowl is about more than football and talking animals. It's about personal triumph. Like the story of a brave young man and his ongoing battle with his bladder. You won't find this story on ESPN, or even ESPN2, you'll only find it here.

I went over to Nick's house to watch the game, because the Super Bowl experience just isn't complete unless I can be crammed in a tiny, bathroomless house with my best friends and some ferrets. First we watched highlights of Super Bowl XXVIII so Jose could bask in the Cowboys former glory. Then we watched Club Dredd and Get Shorty until game time.

Around kickoff time, former Presidents Bush and Clinton came out on the feild wearing matching blue jackets. They looked eerily alike. Around this time I had to use the bathroom, but I didn't want to miss any of the game. And I didn't go during the breaks because I didn't want to miss any of the commercials.

Budweiser usually has the best commercials, but most of theirs were pretty lame this year. Except the parachuting one, which was one of the best ones of the night. If you didn't see it, you can check it out at ifilm. The only problem is that if you haven't seen the ads yet, a lot of the names spoil the ending. But they're still funny, I guess. The other ones I liked:

Ameriquest, "Taser Scare"

Ameriquest, "Cat Killer"

Frito Lay, "MC Hammer Makes a Comeback"

Mastercard, "Mascots"

FedEx, "Dancing Burt"

Diet Pepsi, "P. Diddy Truck Trend"

and all those CareerBuilder.com ads with the chimps. The Mustang one was okay, but they showed it three or four times.

Halftime would have been a good time for me go...you know, but I couldn't move. Maybe I was waiting for something to happen during McCartney's set. Maybe that streaker from last year would show up again. Maybe Charlie Daniels would come up on stage during "Hey Jude" and say "I told you once, you sonofabitch, I'm the best that's ever been!" Maybe Paris Hilton would parachute into the stadium and have sex with a donkey. It's the Super Bowl. Anything could happen.

As I was watching the game, I noticed that 99% of the time, McNabb would throw to whoever Patriot's rookie cornerback Randall Gay was covering. He did a fairly good job, considering he had to be the one to stop the reciever on almost every play. And as childishly amusing as it was to constantly hear his name, I kept wondering why Belichick never caught on and had someone else over there with him. He still won, so I guess it doesn't matter, but I couldn't help but think about that. I also kept thinking about how much I had to pee.

When the game was over, Nick offered to drive Jose home and Wah Kee would drop me off. If we left right after the game, we'd be home in time to catch The Simpsons and American Dad. I only live about twenty minutes away. We got on the highway and were making pretty good time. I might even be home before they announce the MVP. There was no way it was going to be Brady again. It was the defence that won this game. I was thinking it could be either Tedy Bruschi or Rodney Harrison. Bruschi is the man. I even wondered if they'd consider Owens for MVP. Jose said there has been a Super Bowl MVP from a losing team before. And yeah, Owens talks a lot, but he can back it up. He certainly made every effort to help his team.

I didn't get too far in this line of thinking, because coming off the exit ramp to Quincy, this guy was tailgating us. Wah Kee's car hit a patch of ice and skidded into the snow on the side of the road. The other car continued to drive away. We were fine, and there was no damage to the car, but it was more than a little scary spinning around out of control like that. It was a bit like a Tilt-A-Whirl, but with an iminent feeling of death. But we were saved thanks to the abundance of snow that acted as a marshmallow cushion, the very same snow that we'd been cursing for weeks now. So we were safe, but the car had spun 180° and was stuck in the snow. Kee tried to drive out, but that didn't really do anything but make everything smell like burnt rubber. Amazingly, the contents of my bladder remained in place during the whole ordeal. Good for me.

A few people stopped and offered help. A couple of guys in trucks even tried to pull the car out. While Kee was talking to one of them, I was sitting in the car and I saw someone else pull into the snow. At first I thought it was someone else offering to help, but they had actually skidded on the same patch of ice and were left in the same situation we were in. At least they were facing the right direction.

A few minutes later a cop showed up. He was nice and helpful, but he didn't do any sort sobriety test, which I thought was weird. Almost insulting. We were coming from a Super Bowl party, chances are we'd been drinking. We weren't though, partly because we're not really drinkers but mostly because you have to leave Nick's house to go to the bathroom. But he didn't know that. He didn't even ask. He just called a tow truck and asked the other guys who had pulled over to help to leave. We waited ten minutes or so for the tow truck to arrive. I didn't want to call Michele because she wasn't feelling well earlier and I didn't want to get her worried. However I did use the web feature on my phone to see who was named MVP. Dieon Branch. Huh. Well, that solves that.

It took some time, but he got us out, then we had to pull over to the side of the road while he pulled the other car out. The fee was $90, so then we had to follow him to an ATM machine. Once he had his payment, we were free to go. We had left Nick's house around 10:20. I got home a little after midnight. Michele was still awake and the Simpsons was just starting. That must have been one long award ceremony.

After, um, draining the snake, I told Michele about my little adventure.

"Why didn't you use your AAA card?"

"Did you miss the part where I almost died?"

Women.