And now a word from our sponsors...

Among other things, my marriage has been an education in sports I never dreamed I’d see telecast in my abode. Golf, for one. And, for another, NASCAR racing.

I never did and still don’t see the point in a bunch of cars zooming around a track for hours at a time, but I’m finding some of the personalities and definitely the pop-culture persuasiveness of the damned thing kind of interesting in a social anthropological sort of way.

For instance, sponsorship. Husband tells me that in days of yore, when the race was done, the winner would thank God and his team and his pit crew for seeing him to the checkered flag. End of story. Today, they’re thanking everyone who coughed up enough bucks to have a logo printed on the Mylar wrap around his car and stitched into his Nomex suit. I actually watched the end of Saturday’s race (Well, to be completely accurate, he was watching it on tape, and I was doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, in ink. Now don’t think that’s total snobbery. Occasionally, you will find a NASCAR or Formula One question in the venerable Times. The frightening thing is when I know the answers.) and heard the three top finishers rattle off a list of whom to thank that was so long I worried for their lung capacity.

“Well, I’d just like to say that without the unflagging support of the Home-Depot-Coca-Cola-Allstate-Sobe-Energy-Drink-don’t-be-drinkin’-none-of-that-Red-Bull-crap team, we wouldn’t have pulled it off today. No way no how.”

And I’m sure that some of the younger guys, who don’t have all the patter down yet, were counting on some pit crew jock or handler to prompt him on all the people to thank, like maybe he couldn’t read that one patch sewed onto the ass of his suit.

Then Husband came up with the idea that we should get sponsorship for our house. Heck, we give all these people most of our money anyway, so why shouldn’t we get something out of it? A new deck, a couple new appliances, maybe a sunroom. Some college kids have offered to change their names or get the Nike swoosh tattooed on their foreheads for a break on tuition, so why shouldn’t we look for a little outside help for household expenses?

Any time someone comes over or sticks any kind of recording device in our faces we’d have to say – by contract – “Welcome to the Home-Depot-Allstate-Sears-Hannaford-Apple-Sony-Opus house, happy to have you aboard. Or if we had a barbecue, and someone complimented our cooking, we’d say – again, by contract – “Well, none of this would be possible without the help of Kenmore, Danger Men Cooking and Wal-Mart.” And then, Husband said, to save money on repainting, we’d just get a huge Mylar wrap printed up with logos of all of our sponsors and cover our house with it.

I reminded him that no one can see our house from the road.

Then he said they’d probably demand we clear-cut all the trees that impair visibility.

A small price to pay for having our expenses covered? Why not? The guy across the street has a chainsaw bear statue that he dressed up for different holidays, why should I worry about what the neighbors think?

So looking forward to the next time we see you at the Home-Depot-Allstate-Sears-Hannaford-Best Buy-Microsoft-Adobe-Apple-Sony-New Balance-Doritos-Hess-Wal-Mart-Valvoline-Opus house (we’ve picked up a slew more interested parties in the last two paragraphs).

Don’t forget to patronize our sponsors, who thank you for your support.