It’s possible to avoid all the pre-Super Bowl hype after all. I know, because I managed to do it this year. Part of it is the fact that the newspaper vending machine outside the post office has been refusing to take my quarters all week, so I couldn’t read about it. And I haven’t strayed over to CNN since it started turning into Fox News. And I don’t watch Sports Center when it isn’t baseball season.

See how easy it is? It didn’t even take much of an effort. I couldn’t avoid the game itself, because what would I have to say to people tomorrow if I didn’t watch the Super Bowl today? Besides, there’s nothing (and I mean nothing) else on TV tonight. What am I going to do, pretend I haven’t watched XXXVIII other Super Bowls over the years?

Some people think this is a national holiday. For some, it’s time to get together with family and friends and eat and drink and hoot at the dropped passes and missed tackles and complain about coaching decisions and clock management. For me, it’s a good time to stay home alone and make soup in the crock pot.

With the slow cooker going, I had a perfect excuse to hibernate. I got up early (early-ish, for me, for a Sunday) and chopped celery and onions and the like and got things going. I had to stick around and stir it up every hour or so. It gave purpose to my Sunday, even more than the game did.

Plus, as an extra bonus, tonight I have enough soup to feed an army. And not a small army either, but the entire cast of Braveheart. It came out mighty tasty, if I do say so, but I had so much left over that it filled three large plastic storage containers. I might have to go door-to-door tomorrow trying to get rid of it. (I couldn’t sell it. It isn’t that good.)

Maybe I should have had people over to watch the game with me after all.