Being a football fan in Australia has its drawbacks

[21C]

I live in Australia and it is currently summer here. This is the time that I take family vacations. The only problem is that this usually conflicts with the NFL playoffs. I left a couple of days before the NFC/AFC championship games but set my VCR to tape them.

All is good. I go away for a week, come back and watch the games. Yippee!

The problem is that I'm on edge for the whole week. I *hate* watching any sporting event on tape if I know the result. While Australia does not care about the NFL, I am still in danger of finding out the scores on some sports shows and the newspaper.

So what do I do? I avoid all sports shows and newspapers. If I hear one comment that "suggests" a score/result, I will be crest-fallen.

One year, the games were shown on a national network but were delayed by a week. I was preparing to watch the NFC/AFC championship games later one night but had a party at a friend's place first. All through the evening I kept asking people not to breathe a word. Finally someone innocently ( to them anyway ) read a headline that said, "All in readiness for Big Apple Bowl". I knew straight away that the teams that would win their respective games were Buffalo and the NY Giants ( the Australian writer thought that the Big Apple reference would apply for a New York state team ) thus ending any possible enjoyment I might have had watching the games.

Another year, I travelled to Europe in 1988-89 with my wife for the duration of the school vacation ( Dec-Jan ) since I'm a teacher. I got a friend to tape every playoff game so I could watch them when I got back. I had a marathon sitting of watching all of the games when I got back but I couldn't get to the Superbowl before school started. A kid in one class knew I liked football and said, "How did you like the Superbowl?" I quickly jumped in and asked him not to say another word. He said, "Why? Are you a Bengals fan?"

Arrrrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!