Super Bowl Delay, a Successful “How I Met Your Mother” Moment

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I am a huge football fan. I must admit that I lean a bit more toward college ball, but I gather with my friends almost every Sunday to watch games. It is really about the bad jokes, Frank Gore’s Penis, F**** Julius and a variety of inappropriate jokes that makes it fun. My life turned into an the Super Bowl episode of “How I Met Your Mother” when they had to wait to watch the Super Bowl recorded.

My husband was called into work the night before so he wasn’t going to be awake in time to watch the game. In addition, my best friend Carrie was in from North Carolina. Carrie and I mesh on many levels, my love of sports is not one of them. With limited girl time, I couldn’t bail early to watch a football game in which none of my teams were even playing. That being said, why did I care about the Super Bowl? If I wasn’t going to be at the party, it couldn’t matter; yet somehow it did.

I told myself I didn’t care, no big deal. I hate the Sea-Thugs anyway. When my husband suggested we Tivo the game and watch it later I was fine with it. Honestly I figured I would see something and just pretend I didn’t…it’s just a little white lie, right? Chris saw the look on my face and called my lie before the lie. He challenged me to not see anything. It was like the grown-up version of a double-dog dare. Challenge accepted.

  

My first order of business was to call Craig, the only Patriots fan amongst those at my usual football party spot. No calls or texts during the game as I was on delay. That took care of a big part of the potential problem; it also got me laughed at, but that’s beside the point. It’s easy enough not to sign into Facebook, Instagram or things like that during the game, besides I was with Carrie.

We tooled around Los Angeles, I averted my eyes from the TV whenever there was one. You don’t realize just how many TVs are around until you are trying not to watch them. I turned my phone to “hide” so text messages merely came on the home screen as whom they were from, no hint as to what the sender had typed.

For dinner, we chose a sushi place. Japanese should be safe, right? Wrong... TVs lined the one wall and then two were over the bar. Lucky for me the distance made it so I would have to really focus to see the score and I managed to listen quite intently to everything Carrie had to say so as not to hear anything. By the way, also shocking. Places that play football all season don’t put the sound up, but Super Bowl Sunday, it is blaring everywhere!

Said my good-byes to Carrie and started on my way home. I went to turn on the radio and realized that was a very bad idea. Silence in the car, I don’t think I have experienced this ever. No radio, no phone just driving. I lived, barely. Left to my own devices my road rage can get a bit out of control. But there was no traffic, so the general public was safe.

The next challenge was turning on the TV and not seeing who had won. The new menu on Tivo is cool, but it shows the current image in a small window next to the list of programs. So while I could mute it or pause it, I was still going to see a little picture in the corner that may just give it away. Solution: squinch up your eyes super tight. Just enough to make out the list and enough to see what program is highlighted. Success…we started the Super Bowl and knew nothing.

Then the phone started buzzing. I glanced down and saw it was from my brother. I quickly picked up Chris’s phone, texted my brother from there to say I wasn’t reading his text because I didn’t know who won yet. Tragedy averted.

 

We did it, we made it through the whole game without any information. We experienced it as everyone else did and were equally shocked by the ending. It was actually quite nice to live in a little bubble. To be a small party of two with our own little reality for a short time. Honestly, I don’t think we could have made it another hour without something leaking through.

HIMYM Finale, No April Fools Joke Here

***SPOILERS, DUH! I very rarely watch things when they are "on" but due to social media I knew I had no choice. I even had to shut down my phone three hours in advance to avoid any east coast people ruining it for me.

Series finales have lots of pressure. Add that to the fact that "How I Met Your Mother" took an untraditional road from the start and you have an almost impossible scenario. Social media lit up with complaints about the finale and problems but all in all the finale answered all the questions it should have, gave you a glimpse into the wonderful life the group had and ultimately made everyone cry at different moments.
Now there are some out there who are belittling the relationship he had with his wife because he ended up back with Robin. That just isn't the case. He loved his wife completely and never looked back. SHE DIED. So his life is supposed to end!? Even his kids called out that the entire story was aimed at telling them why he might want to revisit the idea of he and Robin now that they were past the child having age and now that he had lost the love of his life.

That's another thing. The finale expands on the idea of the "love of your life." At different points in your life there are changes that cannot be planned or altered. You can't just give up, you have to adapt. If Tracy had not died this wouldn't be an issue. For Ted to go back to Robin is not a statement on how perfect they were for one another but merely a statement on the inalterable change in the situation. Does everyone need to be reminded that Tracy had her "one love" prior to Ted as well? He died tragically and so Ted was kind of her second chance and she leaves him with a great second chance. They had about ten wonderful years together, only about three of them married. It gave Ted an expanded view on the world. Just because we didn't see him mourn the loss of Tracy doesn't mean he didn't.

The truth is that Robin and Ted could have never worked out in a traditional sense. He was meant to have children. He has that, he had the perfect wife for him and now he has come full circle back to his best friend. Just because the story isn't linear and perfect doesn't make it wrong. It is messy, like real life is. It also explains why the entire show seemed to be about Robin. As the kids pointed out it was never really about their mother or she would have been on the show much, much earlier, like six seasons ago. It was an explanation of the world of Robin.
As far as the Robin and Barney of it all, they careers didn't meld, they couldn't ever find a way to both be happy. Barney also needed a kid, specifically a daughter to really grow up. Their marriage was simply a stunted adolescence. They both loved each other but not in that, I would give up the world to support you kind of way. Look at the tough choices Lily and Marshall made in order to make it work. I was sad to see the divorce but it wasn't entirely unexpected.

Another criticism is the fact that Ted and Tracy had so much chemistry that the writers should have changed their course when they saw it, despite the ending having been decided. Now that is just silly. Ted and Tracy should have chemistry, they get married, they have kids they are happy. Stop trying to make one relationship be a statement on the other! You can love two people totally, in entirely different ways. Ted was true to his heart always. He made a commitment and saw it through, now it is time to make a new commitment. You can have chemistry with more than one person, you just make a choice to commit.

This was a nice hour to tie up a complicated story. There was even more pressure put on this ending than the other sitcoms (which everyone always says fail to deliver) because of the bookended end of a story. You saw a glimpse of how adorable and happy Ted and Tracy were, you saw Marshall and Lily grow even closer and happier and you saw both Robin and Barney find their groove. It isn't flawless, but it is a perfect mirror of life.