My beloved and I almost watched the Super Bowl the other evening but our anticipated enjoyment of this momentous event was marred by several things. In retrospect, I suspect that ennui got in the way: We were bored to tears.

HOUR ONE. During this first sixty minutes I reckoned that thirteen minutes of game actually took place. The remainder of the time was wasted on commercials, referee consultations, players changing places with each other and generally stalling between spasmodic episodes of what some laughingly call football. During this time I was happy to note that several birds such as a couple of blue-jays – the genuine articles – a flicker, several crows and a host of finches visited our window feeder and a pair of smartly turned out missionaries arrived at the door. They, to my surprise, seemed to be completely unaware of the enormity of the events taking place on the TV screen, between advertisements. They refused my offer of a seat on the settee but, despite their proselytizing and my sarcasm, time passed happily and nobody got converted either way.

HOUR TWO. This was not as good because, after a neighbour dropped over and asked if he might drive over our lawn in order to pick up some firewood from next door and I kindly asked him if he needed my spouse to come out and help with the bigger hunks, night drew in. Some time during this thirteen of so minutes of activity somebody actually kicked the ball, with his foot. Frankly, I was surprised.

During this second hour, my beloved wandered off into the kitchen in order to think about dinner but she was disturbed by a hideous scream from me. She rushed out into the living room concerned for my welfare. “What?” she cried. “What happened?” I, shame-faced, had to admit that I’d screwed up again on the Saturday Sun’s sudoku.

It was during this hour that I noticed that some of the players were taking shots of oxygen and I felt for them. After all, that part of Florida must be all of ten feet above sea level when no hurricanes are blowing and no tsunamis are crashing ashore. It must be hell rushing about with all that armour under the uniform.

HOUR THREE. We ate dinner in our seats and tried to make sense of what was going on in the game. Occasionally, I threw various articles at the screen as more and more commercials came at us and I recalled the only time we’d watched a live game in Vancouver. There, we remembered, was where we spotted a little man from the TV company giving signals as to when the game should continue and it made me realize why rugby and soccer don’t get the coverage they should in North America. The games don’t stop while the players all go off for chats with their wives and coaches, for shots of oxygen and hand slaps all round. The advertising comes before, at half time, and after the game is over.

My after dinner nap was interrupted by a hideous noise and I snapped awake to realize that the half-time show was on. Then the phone rang and a disembodied voice informed me me that our telephone number had won us twelve hundred dollars towards a foreign vacation. That was fun so I called some friends who, apparently, had had the sense not to be watching the Super Bowl. Somewhat sarcastically, they suggested that I might find a re-run of Seinfeld or even Corner Gas on another channel somewhere.

HOUR FOUR. According to the clock on the screen, there were still fifteen minutes of football to be played and I hoped that I had the intestinal fortitude to see it to the end and I wondered if a person has to be completely tanked up on beer or some other alcoholic beverage in order to watch American football. I also wondered idly if the game was a foretaste of the forth-coming Olympics in Vancouver. Were those broadcasts also to be merely spurts of skilful athleticism interrupting gross commercialism?