I'm one of those people who knows a little bit about a lot of things and nothing in depth -- nothing! -- so I am amazed at women who not only understand but follow American football. You know, those girls who have a team. Like Mimi and the Bears (oh my GOD I'm going to write a theme song to a Saturday morning cartoon RIGHT NOW), and my best friend from high school, Tamara. Tamara decided in fourth grade that she would like the Miami Dolphins (because of those little dolphins with little helmets squeezed onto their neckless heads, although probably not because of the Dolphins helmet sprinklers), and she's been a Dolphins fan ever since. I will never forget going up to Vermont to visit her and listening to her instruct her stepson in the intricacies of touchbacks, or safeties, or, well, something like that. (This site has a lot of good football history, so that if I ever again laugh at the names Tennessee Titans or Baltimore Ravens I can remember 1925, when the NFL had the Providence Steam Roller and the Pottsville Maroons.) The amusing thing is that whenever Jack gets Tamara on the phone they get into these long football conversations about coaches and trades and I have to go pick lint off the carpet for an hour or two in an effort to find something more interesting than listening to half of a conversation about Al Davis. There are men who spend their entire adult lives trying to kill other men on TV every weekend and are famous to millions, and no matter how freakishly thick their necks are I would not be able to spot them at the Hallmark store at the mall. However, being married to a Raiders fan means that if I don't know who Al Davis is I will be calling to reserve a cot at the Home for Battered Raiders Wives next weekend. Which is why it's really, vitally important sometimes to know just enough to make someone think I know more than I actually do.