I believe I’ve mentioned a few times that my husband and I like college football. I am a Tennessee Vols fan since I was born and raised in Volunteer Country. MrZ, on the other hand, is a Crimson Tide fan. Because he has a low IQ.

My husband is much more rabid of a “fan” than I am. He subscribes to webpages and forums that we actually have to pay for him to be a part of. His Saturdays revolve around Alabama football. Depending on the game, the cursing and screaming can be at a dangerous level. He becomes irrational and sometimes even mean. I’ll only watch a game with him if I’m at least 95% sure Alabama will win. And the last few years? That hasn’t been often.

This past weekend was the Iron Bowl. The Alabama/Auburn game. A game I had no desire to watch because I didn’t think it was going to go well and I did not want to be present while MrZ was watching it. We went out to see Christmas lights for awhile and then I went to bed early. I didn’t even know the outcome until the next morning.

MrZ just sent me some quotes from the message boards he reads and said, “I thought you could identify w/ a few quotes from a bamaonline thread today…”

Here are some I identified with the most:

My wife is really pissed at me, as you can probably imagine. I might have to stop watching games live. My wife says she’s not going to watch anymore games with me. In the past, I’ve yelled like crazy and had a “cursing fit” at the house. Thankfully we don’t have kids. I just get so worked up.

I like the “Thankfully we don’t have kids” part. I don’t know this guy, but if MrZ is any indication, it won’t change even after they have kids. And at least his wife has already stopped watching. It will spare her a lot of stress after they do have kids.

For years I would watch and actually took pride in how emotional I would get during our games. I thought it was a badge of honor to get so worked up, win or lose. It wasn’t until friends started telling me that I scared them when the game was on that I started thinking perhaps it was a problem.

MrZ doesn’t scare me, so to speak, but I do fear he’ll scare others. We have a lot of walkers in our neighborhood and I worry if they walk by our house at the wrong time police may be called. His voice can travel an entire block, depending on what he’s yelling.

I am honestly considering becoming a bit more detached as a fan. I am ENTIRELY too consumed by Alabama football. My wife, too, was pissed at me the other night. It finally got to the point to where she basically just told me that I needed help. She was forced to say “There is more to life than Alabama football” because I made the comment that my entire Holiday season was completely ruined.

MrZ hasn’t said exactly that, but he’s made statements just as extreme and completely illogical. He has a hard time understanding why his parents are suddenly Auburn fans. Even though they pay tuition for his sister to go there, the way he looks at it, he’s been a Crimson Tide fan longer so they should root for his team. Because, you know, his lifelong dedication to a school he never attended should totally come before their money spent on tuition currently.

I like to call this…Football Induced Multiple Personality Disorder. MrZ would never use words like “F____in’ Douchebags” unless football was on. It definitely brings out the verbally creative side of him. To say the least.

I mentioned before how we’re trying to teach my daughter to do tricks. She is still performing the college allegiance trick, but she has changed it a little bit. Now - she mocks me by consistently saying, “Mommy Says, ‘Roll Tide!’” and giving me an evil little laugh as she does it. Sometimes, out of the blue she’ll just look at me and say, “Roll Tide, Mommy!” You know, because she thinks that is cute. She’ll even sometimes laugh and keep doing it until I run off crying, “Mommy does not say that!”

I started getting a sneaking suspicion that a certain husband of mine was teaching her to do that when I wasn’t looking. The truth became apparent that he must be teaching her something because now, when someone asks what Mommy says? She doesn’t say, “Go Vols!” like she was taught. Nope. She says, “GO BALLS!”

Yes, Honey. Mommy likes to root for the testicles.

You know how sometimes you’ll wake up 10 or 15 minutes before you have to get up? And then you think, “I should go ahead and get up, but I’ve got 15 more minutes before I have to, so I think I’ll go back to sleep.”

Well, if you use an alarm to get up, that’s great, but I don’t. I just naturally wake up between 4 and 4:30am. If I have a lot to do, I’ll get up closer to 4am, but this morning I didn’t. So, I went back to sleep for a little while. And then woke up almost an hour later. DAMN. It’s a sucky way to start a Monday - but something I should have known would happen since we stayed up late watching the Super Bowl. (Go Colts!)

And of course, by “late” I mean “9pm.” When you get up around 4:30am, 9pm is late.

NikkiZ is going to have a rough day too, since she slept until 7:30am on Saturday and almost 8:30am on Sunday. Which, was great for us, but is going to suck for her when I have to wake her up at 5:30am for school. She’s only 1, but she truly understands the value of a weekend. And truly despises Monday mornings.

Being tired from staying up “late” is one thing, but being bloated and still full from a day of gluttony doesn’t help much either. We ate cheese dip, cocktail weenies, spinach dip, ranch dip, hot dogs, triscuits, and more types and flavors of potato chips than should be legal. The sodium content alone has me retaining enough water to sink the Titanic, not to mention the fat and cholesterol. But damn…it was good. Super Bowl food is almost better than Christmas food, in my opinion. Because it usually involves beer as well.

So I may drag a wee bit today, as my body digests a year’s allowance of grease. And I might be a bit tired because I didn’t get a full night’s sleep. And I may walk a little funny since I ran 10 miles in freezing temps yesterday. But does any of it matter? No. Because today? My boy Peyton Manning is a Super Bowl Champion.

Way to go, Peyton. The Vols won the National title the year after you left; and I’ve felt bad for you ever since. You deserved that win last night and thanks to you, my daughter now knows how to scream key phrases like, “Shit!” and “Fudge!” and “OHMYGODWASTHATANOTHERDAMNFUMBLE?” There was also the sister of that statement, “HolyShitAnotherInterception!” which was used often in the car on the way home from the inlaws during the 4th quarter. And of course - most importantly - the always valuable - “Woooooo!”

We had our first bully incident yesterday. I’m not going to get into the details of the encounter because I’m not sure a certain pre-teen would appreciate it. Just know it was LilZ trying to stand strong against a bully. While the bully wasn’t impressed.

Since it occurred after school, while the kids were waiting for the bus, the security guy wrote it down in his magic notebook and said they’d meet about it today. LilZ seemed a bit unsettled by it all, but not as much as I would have been. He’s just so damn laid-back. I told him I was going to call the school today to make sure there was a follow-up. They take bullying very seriously there, the principal even gave out her home phone number to report cyber-bullying that may occur after school hours. They insist that if they nip bullying in the bud when it first shows it’s face - they can prevent an epidemic of it.

This has me beyond freaked out. It wasn’t a huge incident, no one was hurt or anything. But - I’m a mother. My son was threatened. It makes the den-mother side of me rage in ways I probably shouldn’t transcribe. I would love to go up there and cause a huge scene to make sure this kid is kicked out of the school. Hell, I would love to kick him out myself. Do you think they’d let me?

No, I know. I don’t really think the kid should be kicked out or anything. Nor will I go up there and raise a stink when my son is old enough that a move like that could cause embarassment on a deathly level. But I will call. And I’ll try not to refer to LilZ as “my baby” while conveying my concern. This is new parental territory for me. Territory I hoped I’d never have to cross. Territory I’m incredibly unprepared for. Freaked out is probably an understatement - now that I think about it.

That’s it. Nikki is grounded until she’s 25.

We watched Fever Pitch last night, which I liked for MANY reasons. But my favorite thing about the movie? I think it VERY accurately portrayed the emotions behind having sports teams to root for. “Dog People” always agree with each other that “Non-Dog People” don’t understand how we can get SO upset when a pet dies. It’s an emotional connection that people who have never had dogs can rarely understand.

The EXACT same thing goes for Sports People.

Now, I am not as extreme as Jimmy Fallon was in the movie. MrZ has me beat in all time knowledge of the teams I root for. Stats? Not my thing. Historical trends and betting lines? Bah. But watching a team do something that makes you cry? Been there. Done that.

I grew up in Knoxville, TN - so I didn’t have much of a choice other than being a TN Vols fan. However, it was my Mom and her friends who really turned me to the Orange Nation. We would spend Saturdays watching the games surrounded by people who sang Rocky Top whenever the band played it (an average of about 40+ times a game). Everyone wore orange on EVERYTHING. I remember taking LilZ to his first Grammy Football Experience in October 1995. We drove to Knoxville to watch the TN/AL game with all of her friends. He fell asleep halfway through the game and even stayed asleep while I held him against my chest screaming at the top of my lungs: “ROCKY TOP….YOU’LL ALWAYS BE…” because we had just beat Alabama for the FIRST time in TEN YEARS.

And we all declared LilZ the good luck charm, of course.

I will never forget that night and the power of a victory that I had been waiting for for TEN YEARS. The excitement was brilliant and the energy was intoxicating. And I cried.

I spend most of my Saturdays (at least the last 11 years or so) surrounded by NON-VOL fans. I live in Alabama, it comes with the territory. I’m the one in the orange. See what I mean? Well, the SEC Championship game of 1997 was no different. I was watching it at Stace’s house surrounded by people rooting for Auburn. We were down 20-7 to Auburn in the second quarter and they would NOT let me ignore that fact. I ended up hiding in a bedroom to watch the rest of the game. We ended up winning 30-29, and the feeilng of being able to step OUT of that bedroom and smack talk the entire house? Priceless. I cried.

But nothing has as much emotion tied up in it as the 1998 Season. My mom’s roommate of 8 years, Enza, died unexpectedly early in the season. She and my mom were both VERY extreme Vol fans and the next game after she died was the TN/Florida game. Then entire game I sat there praying for a win, not only because I hated Steve Spurrier with every ounce of my soul (still do), but also because there was some part of all of us who knew Enza that would feel like IF Tennessee won, it would make her death make sense. We won off a botched field goal from Florida. A field goal he SHOULD have made. My mother called me immediately and said, as she’s screaming, “Enza noogied the kicker! She noogied the kicker!” I cried quite a bit that night too.

We ended up having a perfect season that year, and becoming National Champions. If there is a God, he definitely put Enza in charge of NCAA football that year. The emotions behind every game ran so high that I spent the entire season drunk. Seriously.

But non-sports people? Just don’t get it.

I may not be AS into Vol football as I’ve been before, but the emotions are still there. I am embarassed to say how many times I’ve teared up and said to MrZ when he insults someone related to TN football “See? That’s just NOT nice. I don’t insult YOUR players, please don’t insult mine.” Seriously, it has made me CRY before. But we try our best to respect each other’s preferences. But, when MrZ cried a little over Bama beating the Gators two weeks ago? I cried too. Because I know that feeling. That feeling of FINALLY seeing the team you root for with ALL your heart and ALL your soul, see that team FINALLY go above and beyond what you were hoping for. It’s an amazing thing that only sports people understand.

So today, for MrZ? I’ll say, “Roll Tide!”

Next week? A whole other story…