ON SUNDAY I LEFT MY WIFE!

. . . to go watch football with the guys. (Sorry. I just got done watching "CSI: Miami," and now I'm a sucker for this sort of shit.) My friend D. picked me up and we drove out to fucking Shoreline ("A car in every back yard!") where C. lives in his new house, complete with his game room right above the garage. Or "Fonzie's Place," as he correctly described it.

Normally our football gang, when we get together, also includes our friend K., but K. is in a big-shot rocking roll comedy band, and he had practice that day with them, so instead of joining us for some red-blooded American footing-ball, he hung out with his long-hair scab-pickers while they perfected their sneering techniques, flicked boogers at their roadies, and debated the logistics of fitting a harmonium, a lute and a theremin into an already loaded-down '89 Honda Civic. Anyway, K.'s band played Helena, Montana recently, so now he's too good for us, so C. and D. and I all agreed: sucks to his ass-mar. We settled in.

C.'s game room did not disappoint. For one thing, it has a pool table! A ratty, unlevel pool table! Which, I think we can all agree, is the best kind of pool table. Shitty pool players everywhere--and we certainly are--learn to love the frisson of excitement that only can be found in unpredictable table roll. It makes setting up subsequent shots really exciting, and it also lets us horrible players pretend that we had the next shot all planned, but that cursed table roll foiled our plans! Another pleasing feature of home pool tables is that they are invariably too big for the rooms that contain them, and so certain angles require crabbed shot angles, with the cue bouncing against the wall behind you, forcing you into near-masse-style shots, or to having to use the ignominious sawed-off house cue instead. C.'s mini-cue for those spots was named "Little Blackie" because C. is a racist who wishes he could have slave dwarfs. Also, it has black decorations on it. Anyway, at halftime, I destroyed C. in a game of 8-Ball by inducing him into sinking the 8 ball into the wrong pocket while I still had four balls on the table. I'm pretty good at pool.

D. didn't play pool, claiming that he "didn't like" the game, but in reality it's because while he's a good six feet tall, he also is a socialist with tiny little weenie hands, and he clearly feared my prowess at this mighty game. Instead, he decided to demolish C. and I in a couple of games of darts (for what game room does not have darts?). D. smoked us both twice in a row, but it must be pointed out that C. and I had, by this time, already consumed a couple beers, while D., who does not drink, had not. So, in other words, D. cheated. Congrats on those empty victories, D.

Speaking of consumables! Oh, we had a fine spread. D. had brought a mighty crock pot half-filled with Li'l Smokies, wallowing in a heavenly bath of barbecue sauce. We stamped our feet like toreadors as the pot slowly heated. While we waited for the tiny little hot dogs to come up to temperature, we sated our appetites with . . . jumbo hot dogs! C. had broken out the Foreman grill for the bastards, and so we manfully wrapped our lips around gigantic wieners and stared at the televised images of heavily muscled men grabbing other men and passionately pulling them to the ground. In time, we did also sample the savory little wieners as well, glistening and plump, and marveled at the salty juices inside. MEN! Yes, we were men.

We had other snacks, of course. Bags of chips! Or . . . well, I'm not sure what they were. One bag was filled with a bunch of shit like Chee-Tos, pretzels, little hunks of tortilla chips, peanuts, photinos, marbles, mahogany splinters, clumps of hair . . . I think the brand name of the stuff was "SKUNGE!" and it had an adline something like "The tailing pond of snack foods!" And it really was like the Superfund site of snackables. There was also a twenty-five-pound bag of something that we were too nervous to open, brightly labeled as "Human Arms." C. kicked nervously at the bag and said, "It was on sale at Costco."

We had a great time, apart from the actual football game unfurling in front of our horrified eyes. Already down our hobbled star running back Shaun Alexander, out with a busted foot--Jesus Christ apparently has nothing on the mickle powers of John Madden and his lousy curse--we then stared unhappily as Matt Hasselbeck left the game after having his knee rolled over by some oaf; after that, the game turned into a Benny Hill routine, complete with "Yakety Sax" playing whenever Seneca Wallace touched the ball.

It's too bad that K. missed it, really. We had a gay old time.