The Silent Yell

Down to the last minutes of the game and a field goal will win. The kick is up and...it's...GOOD! Yessssss! Jumped on the coach and hollered.  The neighbors heard me and they knew that my team had won the game. There is bedlam in my living room as I try to find the phone to call all the Jets haters to rub it in after a great will by Gang Green! Well that was in BC years....Before Clarke!

They say that a baby changes you and when you start to add up the many ways that it does, it makes you realize just how much you are a different person. Last night, my beloved Jets won the game in the last moments of regulation and all through the game I wanted to hoot and holla for my team. But I have learned.

When Clarke was small, I think I stopped her heart one time when I yelled at the screen (what do you mean they can't hear me in the Meadowlands from my couch....hogwash) during a Jets game against the Putrid Patriots. I felt so bad that I have since mastered the Silent Yell where I allow for every motion associated with the scream (including the furious fist pump) except for the audible part of the celebration. The Silent Yell. For three seasons now I have looked like a tv commercial with the sound turned down just so I don't startle my child, or worse yet...gasp...wake her up! I'm almost positive that it's giving me an ulcer! At least, that what I'm going to tell the doctor when he asks. Can't blame the team. That might jinx them!

So here I am swallowing my screams like a black hole, tip toeing up stairs at night, and having muffled intimacy with my wife like we were upstairs in one of our parents houses back in high school (don't act like it was JUST me).  All because we live in the post BC era. So much has changed. It amazing to me and it the little things that make it real. Like texting vitriol to all my sadly misguided friends who are Giants friends instead of calling and having a page full of comments on Facebook instead of having a living room full of people commenting about the game. But one day that will change when she is old enough to hang out late for a game or she is not so jumpy when her father, a man who she very rarely has EVER seen yell, becomes a screaming banshee over a bunch of people running around in tights on the same tv that she was JUST watching The Backyardigans on. Maybe next season when she becomes a true Jets fan (save your commentary: she has no choice), we can get back to a raucous enjoyment of the wonderfully poetic brutality of daddy's favorite sport. Until then, the Silent Yell it is...

These are my thoughts...what are yours?