Nine friends from the hood came over to watch the game. Though I knew they were coming, I provided no chicken wings, no chips, and no beer (I know that sounds unAmerican – I’ve never seen Gone With the Wind either), but someone brought a ten pound slab of chocolate, so we were all set. I finished it off for breakfast (just kidding – or am I?).

Two of the nine friends left the opera early to arrive in time for the game, not because they are such big football fans but because they thought the opera was so awful that they couldn’t leave fast enough (they did wait for intermission so that they wouldn’t be banned for life – a poor motivation in my opinion).

One attendee, who was rooting for the Eagles, as was most everyone in the room who knew we were watching football (remember we had opera lovers there), kept reminding us that the Patriots always came from behind to win. Even after the game was over, she seemed concerned that she would arrive home to discover that something had happened en route, well after the final whistle, to change the result in the Patriot’s favor (no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition and no one trusts the Patriots).

As the game ended my guests established a new world indoor record for quickest departure from a Super Bowl party because they wanted to get home in time to watch the special episode of This Is Us airing after the game (the intricacies of recording a show after a live sporting event apparently had eluded most of them and they were worried that the artificial intelligence of their DVRs wouldn’t pick up the slack). I‘ve never seen the show, but I gather that night’s episode was revealing the cause of a lead character’s death. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t J.R. Ewing’s and that Bobby wasn’t coming out of the shower, but who knows. After all, the Patriots were four-and-a-half point favorites.