I'm going to miss the Packers Bears game tonight. To me, that's like waking up on December 26th and realizing you've slept through Christmas. But I have rehearsal, and theatre people just don't understand the concept of sports, no matter how heated the rivalry.
I grew up my whole life having the simple but powerful doctrine of "Packers Suck" permanently burned into my brain, to the point where I would have to really consider Brett Favre my arch-enemy. And I know I'm not alone.
There's a t-shirt that I always see at NFC games: "Packer's Suck, Brett Favre Swallows". I sing "The Pack Still Sucks" at the top of my lungs every Sunday. I cheered three years ago when Favre left Lambeau Field with a towel over his head because he'd performed so miserably. On opening Sunday in Champaign I saw people hanging, burning and beating effigies of the fabled, Vicodin ridden #4, and of course, let's talk about his putrid acting in There's Something About Mary and his horrid pronounciation of his horrid name. No really, let's. Email me and we'll talk about it.
I have never in my whole Chicago based life heard ONE positive thing about Brett Favre, as I'm sure up in Packer land they trash the all Holy and Glorious Name of Walter Payton (although how they could do that, I'm not quite sure, since he was the greatest man of all time.) I was raised to believe that Brett Favre is an alcoholic, a drug addict, a man who cheats on his wife, a cocky son of a bitch, an idiot, a lucky bastard, and probably a cannibalistic murderer. (I think my grandpa threw that last one in).
So you can see that the Packers Bears games are a big deal for me and my family. My father has stress induced glaucoma from watching these yearly games, and is required to periodically take his pulse and blood pressure while watching football. He always told me when I was learning the basics of football that we should never root for an injury, then screamed for the defense to "break their necks." We nearly started a war when the Pack deliberately injured Jim McMahon long after the whistle blew. I require a room of my own with no one around me when the game is on. My mother once mentioned that she thought Favre was "good looking" and my family nearly tore her to bits like a bizarre South Side Bacchanalia. I have been known to weep openly like a young widow at how these games turn out. I continuously throw things at the pastily ubiquitous John Madden as he slurringly gives Favre verbal hummers, my friend Ann had a blind date with a man here in Chicago and when he revealed he was a Packer Fan, she CALLED IT OFF. We AREN'T JOKING AROUND.
This is not just a game tonight...this is the deciding factor in whether I'm in a good mood for the next four months or a bad one. And I'm going to miss it...so I can be in a movie. Sigh.