I am not making this up.  But I do need to get it off my chest.

(thanks, mom, but we'll have gnome ore of those presents.)

I am not making this up.  

I am not making it up when I say that the most serious fight, in fact, the only serious fight, my wife and I have had since we began courting is the fight over our future children, that is, the college football fandom of said future children.  

I am also not making it up when I say that at the time I tried to quell my wife's rage by paraphrasing Thucydides.  After all, I said, Michigan and Alabama are like Athens and Sparta--a whale against an elephant.  They're just not likely to bump heads much, if at all.  I mean, honey, they've played all of three times in a hundred-some years.  Why can't our kids grow up to support both of them?

That actually worked, for a few weeks, until Dave Brandon Created the Future, or rather Jerry Jones took a(nother) turn as Applegate.  Also, We Created the Future, and a Baby Apostle is on the way, whose fandom is at stake this evening.

At least, that's all that was until I told of our arrangement to my uncle, a Domer alum who likes to live vicariously through people who have viable teams to cheer for.  He suggested that those stakes weren't nearly high enough.  You need more than the fandom at stake, he said.  His name should be at stake.  "Bo" if Michigan wins, "Bear" if Alabama wins.  I laughed it off.  Who of us here knows a woman that would go along with such a preposterous idea?

...

I am also not making it up when I say that after I laughed it off, my wife said that she would actually be fine with it.*

*For those of you who are shaking your heads NoWayWouldAWomanEverEverAgreeToThat I should admit that her sole stipulation was that his formal name, should Michigan somehow hold back her vaunted Tide, would be spelled "Beau".  (She is a Southerner, after all.)  I said, well, OK. I'm still going to spell (and pronounce) it "Bo".

What if it's a girl? Good question.  We've only had one sonogram, at 20 weeks, and that's all we'll have since we go to a midwife at a birthing center, and that's how that rolls. (I guess you could say the girl's got some Ann Arbor in her after all.)  I'm told they can sometimes be inaccurate, but if Denard's arm isn't what we hope it can be, that will be all I have to hang my child's name on at the end of the day.

Three chances for me to look stupid in 3.5 hours (and for the rest of my/his life):

• This could all probably have been avoided had I sprung for travel and tickets to the game.
• This could all have been avoided had I just married some girl in Ann Arbor who only was aware of football to the extent that it impacted her UMS tickets or hair appointments downtown.
• This could be my only chance to have a son with the same name as one of Harvey Updyke's.

PREDICTION:  This is my son, fergodsakes!  GO BLUE!

...

please...