The Super Bowl Halftime Show Ruined My Marriage

I am currently typing this from the sidewalk outside the home I inhabited until 8:43 EST on Sunday, February 2, 2020.

My old friend Randy is picking me up and I plan to stay with him indefinitely while I come to terms with starting anew. Randy wasn’t my first choice, but he happens to be the only one in my rolodex who doesn’t have a wife or kids or a checking account.

Sleeping on Randy’s futon from the Civil War-era shouldn’t be so bad as long as I convince myself that someone didn’t die on it and these are just Cinnabon stains. Tomorrow for breakfast we’re having bong rips and Mountain Dew before a long day of work puking and rallying. There’s a certain liberation that comes with plummeting so low that even the pursuit of trying again seems unreasonable. This is a weird heaven.

And to think just yesterday I was sitting home all showered in a J. Crew sweater that screams ‘I Am A 32-Year-Old White Man With No Opinions’ with a belly full of buffalo chicken dip trying not to be aroused by Jimmy Garopollo.

“Stop, Matt, dad will kill you.” 

And I wasn’t the only one.

My wife, who for 10 years has shown no evidential interest in football whatsoever, was glued on Jimmy G like the resin on Randy’s bong. My wife has never once looked at me the way she looked at Jimmy Sunday night. The only reason I didn’t call her on it is because I was afraid she’d tell me the truth.

She is culpable in this too.

I can’t expect her to shoulder all the blame. Because I should have been smarter. She laid down the trap and I trust fell into it. Swan dived right into the buzz saw. Even as I await to willingly contract the coronavirus from Randy’s bath towel, I am ashamed of who I was.

In my defense, I am just one man. And what we witnessed last night during the halftime of Super Bowl LIV in Miami, Florida was a dosage of sexual napalm fit for 100 men or three Charlie Sheens.

“Who is prettier?” my wife asked faux-innocently, just hoping to divert my undivided attention for a moment. I don’t think she was actually expecting me to swing at the pitch.

“Both.” 

At this point I was foaming at the mouth, sweating uncontrollably. Every fiber of my being was so entangled in this transcendent spectacle, I would have made my child a bastard just for a locket of J-Lo’s hair.

It wasn’t long before I suddenly spoke Spanish fluently and was singing just like Shakira. I’d find out later that the neighbors thought we were pet-sitting a goat. I then began contorting my body, dancing as if no one was watching just like that tapestry my wife made me put holes in the drywall for.

In that moment, I have never felt more sexy. If someone had told me to go screw myself I would have considered it an honor.

Upon hearing Joe Buck’s voice, I crashed back to reality only to find my wife giving the same look she did when she figured out how to check the internet search history on the “family” computer.

Immediately I knew I’d have to bundle up because it’s winter and the dog house doesn’t have insulation.

But I never expected the punishment for blatantly fawning over two beautiful boomers to be a death sentence. I was ready to take the plea bargain and buy her a pair of Lulu pants and verbally acknowledge all the ways I’ve underperformed in the marriage until I am so hollow and beaten down, that I would never deem myself acceptable to any other woman. A small price to pay to the alternative:

Sitting on my only suitcase waiting for someone who has a velcro wallet to usher me into my new life.

You’re all I got, Randy. Let’s make some Cinnabons.