Fantasy Football for Girls

I met with Richard and Adrienne up at a local bar to watch all the 1:00 games today. Richard and I were playing each other in two separate leagues (I lost both games) and Zoe, their 10 year old daughter, came along.

When I walked in, Zoe was sitting on the end sipping her Shirley Temple and eating her lunch. I had a seat and the afternoon began.

Trying to watch eight simultaneous games (there were ten games, but only eight television screens,) and keep up with stats on a phone is sheer madness. Doing this and carrying on a conversation is a small step beyond madness. Now throw in trying to grab the attention of the brown haired woman wearing a hoody at an adjacent table and it becomes sensory overload for an adult, but poor Zoe gets bored quite quickly.

"Daddy, do you have to be a certain age to play fantasy football?" What was funny was she asked the same question last week, approaching the subject as though she might be interested in playing.

"No," he answered.

"I go to school with two boys, Nathan and Greg, and all they ever do is talk about fantasy football and how well their teams are doing."

I piped in, "Well, you know, if you like boys, then learning how to play fantasy football will give you something to talk about with them."

In unison, Richard and Adrienne shout "Bryon!" I don't think they're quite ready for Zoe to become interested in boys yet.

I am not allowed to give Zoe advice on boys any more.

***

In her boredom, Zoe grabbed a napkin and a pen and got her dad to play Hangman with her. Zoe is a very visual person, so the first few games were literally things in front of her.

Richard ran through "Shirley Temple," "cherry," "hangman," "knife," and then "silver."

While watching the games and listening out of one ear, I grabbed the pen and created a blank answer for her to figure out.

As a kid I remember playing with my cousins Denise and Melissa in the family room of their house and I stumped them using "XAVIER," the name of the school I'd eventually got to high school for.

As I placed out all the blanks, "_ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _    _ _ _ _ _ _."

Eventually she got to "S A I N T    _ A _ I E R    H I G H    S C H O O L" before she lost.

I'm probably too competeitive for my own good.

At this point, Richard leans over and says, "You know what would be funny?"

"What?"

"Use the phrase 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.'"

I started laughing. It was like when he'd set the deck playing "Hearts" in college and I'd come back from the bathroom and run the deck against him, Marge and Kim. They sat there laughing as my lack of a poker face was all they needed to get a great laugh.

I set up the board for Zoe.

She was guessing all the obvious letters and I filled them in. I don't think she was aware she had not missed a letter yet. Her face was lit up as she could do no wrong!

As she ran through letters, one by one, I marked them in.

"L. D. T. H."

"What's next?" I asked her.

"M. F. R." she answered one at a time.

She pointed to the word "F O _" and was shocked to learn it was not "F O R."

"B. N. W. G." Upon filling in the last word, she confessed she thought it was "DOES" originally.

"Q."

The board was filling in and she was still unaware she had not missed one.

"This is hard," she said.

Ricard was laughing watching this and said, "Try some unusal letters. Letters you wouldn't normally use."

"Z." I filled it in and she yelled "LAZY!"

"C. K. V." Upon writing in the "V," she shouted "OVER!"

I can't tell you how funny this had actually become for us. She had just a few letters left and started saying her ABCs trying to see what she had not used yet.

"J..... Jumped. Got K. Got L."

Richard throws out the last letter and she repeats it. "X..... Fox."

Then she solves it and we explain to her that the sentence has every single letter in the alphabet. She just started laughing at us and then we got back to watching more football.