It was the first time I ever caught him lying to me. I wanted to scream but had no one to scream at. I was home alone when I realized it, and I couldn’t even think of what I might say or do when he got home. How did he manage to keep such a poker face for so long? I thought I could read him so well, but obviously, I was wrong. I didn’t know what else he had told me that I had to start second-guessing.
He taught me to whistle one of the USC fight songs, and told me it was UCLA’s fight song. So he, being the die-hard Trojan fan that he was, would walk around the house whistling one of USC’s songs, and the naive, ever-so-trusting wife that I was, would whistle my supposed UCLA fight song in retaliation. He let it go on for months. Until that evening when he was out, and I was home alone watching a USC football game. USC scored their first touchdown, their band started playing, and suddenly my ears perked up. That song. The song I’ve been whistling all these months. That’s not the UCLA fight song!
Ok, so I realize that it’s a bit pathetic that I had been such a terrible Bruin fan (a two-time Bruin, for that matter) that I didn’t even know my own school’s fight song. And it’s even more pathetic because UCLA is so huge with its sports life, as opposed to my first alma mater, UCSD, which had absolutely zero sports life to boast of. I suppose I have some responsibility to account for here. But even still! He lied to me. He lived that lie for months. And he loves to rub it in my face that I fell for it.
We are without a doubt a house divided. A UCLA blanket lies next to a USC blanket. A UCLA baseball cap next to a USC cap. Mugs, plates, t-shirts, it all testifies of the animosity that pervades our otherwise happy home. Football season has started and I always re-realize just how obnoxious my otherwise kind-hearted husband becomes at this time of the year. I see the same Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde phenomenon in my Trojan friends whom I otherwise love and get along with wonderfully. The trash talk flies unabashedly and they take tremendous joy in waving those two ridiculous fingers in my face. One family of six in particular, the majority being Trojan alumni, even made arrangements to have the USC marching band come to play at their son’s wedding reception, big ridicuolous feathery helmets, sunglasses, brass and all. The Bruins there were outnumbered and we had to endure a good 30 minutes of Trojan cacophany, including the majority of the crowd yelling “UCLA sucks!” at the top of their lungs when it came time for the band to play “Tusk.” You can be sure my husband was eating it up.
For better or for worse is what I signed up for. And now that football season is here, it’s definitely for worse.
a pilgrim's lens 