They don’t tell you this about marriage, but trust me when I say, a little rivalry is a good thing.
It draws out a healthy competitive side. It puts you at odds and then evens things out, eventually.
You get to chirp one another ruthlessly in both victory and defeat, because win or lose, there is always a healthy fear of retribution for how one accepts their fate. Either way, someone will have to make someone else the apology coffee in the morning.
And so it begins: NFL season 2025/26.
It was Sunday, Aug. 17. I was upstairs scrubbing the bath tub, a household chore that falls to me because apparently I’m the only one bothered by soap scum that gathers in the corners behind the shampoo bottles. It’s sort of like the toilet, the offences of which, as stated above, only seem to disgust me, thus I am tasked with sanitizing the porcelain throne regularly.
I am not even sure my spouse, the Carpenter, knows how it gets clean. In a perfect world, I would have my own bathroom. I want that house.
I digress. I was kneeling over the bathtub, a little buzzed on all-natural cleaning solutions that were supposed to be good for the environment yet still dangerous enough to get me high from inhaling the fumes. I was simultaneously contemplating my life choices – as one does when doing menial tasks that aren’t as fulfilling as one would hope, with cleaners that aren’t as effective as one would hope – when the Carpenter bolted up the stairs animated like I’d not seen him in some time.
He searched room to room looking for me, calling my name like he had breaking news of the most positive, life-changing kind. A lottery win? A free trip to a five-star resort? Butter for life? (What? It’s the best condiment.)
“In here,” I responded, my voice rebounding from the incredible acoustics of the bathtub. He leapt into the room, literally, to find me sitting on the floor in my I-don’t-care housework attire with wide, glazed eyes, black gloves and a spaced-out smile, eager for news that would tell me I’d never have to clean another bathroom again, (because lottery win) or I was going to Barbados, or my dream of butter for life had come true.
I guess the anticipation showed oddly on my face, because when his eyes met mine, his reaction was one of immediate, though temporary concern. It’s like he finally realized how the bathtub magically gets clean. Huh.
“Kell, it’s three weeks until football,” he exclaimed with the joy of a little boy who found out tomorrow is Christmas, Santa is real and he’s getting the Hot Wheels race track with the double loops.
He was talking fast, holding up his phone like it held the answers to life. “The football pool is on. We just got the email notification. Did you get it? I got it. We need to send in the cheque. Three weeks, baby. It’s go-time.”
Adorable. I love this man. Yet, that spark of rivalry was immediate. The chirping of my 49ers and his Seahawks was ignited. And so it begins. Kittle’s Kelly (my NFL pool name) is ready. Superstitious traditions have begun.
Bring on the heat.
Game on.
