PHOENIX, ARIZ—It’s 11 p.m. and I’m sitting in a 12th floor hotel room in the heart of this city, nursing a splitting headache.
I’m here all week for the Super Bowl craziness, and already they’re sucking the money out of my wallet. Call it the Super Hosing—they’re killing me on car rental, parking, Internet hookup, you name it. A cash register Ka-ching is pounding my head.
What a day. It started with a taxi cab ride from Yonkers to LaGuardia. The driver, Kurt, wouldn’t stop talking, going a mile a minute like he had caffeine coursing through his cerebral cortex and out his ears and nostrils. (how’s that for imagery?) I was wearing ny Giants hat, so that put him on a nearly incoherent riff about Tom Brady, Eli Manning and how there was no pressure on the Giants. So he predicted the Giants would win the big game 24-21.

I think not, Kurt.

But what do I know. Back in the summer, I put the Giants at 3-13 for the regular season. Ernie Palladino, who covers the team for the Journal News assured me they were better than that. He said they had a great new defensive coordinator and the Big Blue defense of Strahan & Co. would surprise me. I scoffed…No way. My arrogant pessimism was only validated by their first two ignominious losses.
Then they ripped off six wins in a row, went on to complete a respectable record of 10-6, which was sufficient to get to the playoffs. Three playoff wins later, and here they are, 12 point underdogs against the Patriots and everyone is excited in this town because this is America’s secular holiday and nothing can put a damper on it, not even the collapse of the domestic economy and the rise of China and the European Union.

Did I tell you about my plane trip?

It was awful. I was booked on AirTran, an airline that packs people in like sardines in seats that are spacious for a starving child of about six. The complimentary meal is a tiny bag of pretzels. And I love airport security. This time, a tall chick in security drag confiscated my lethal can of Old Spice shaving cream. Great, just great.

Now I refuse to shave for the next six days.

Two-hour holdover in Atlanta, the nation’s busiest airport…then onto Phoenix, which at night looks like White Plains. A lot of places look like White Plains at night.

OK, I gotta get a beer. Enough of this blather about Super Tuesday…Wait, I wasn’t talking about Super Tuesday. I was talking about Super Sunday, but there’s not much difference. Both are about hype and disappointment.

Incidentally, have you noticed how the candidates on both sides look like feckless pipsqueaks, now that the country is in big trouble? Can they follow the Patriot’s Act?..Ooh, bad joke. Hey,I wonder if Hillary ever played nose guard at Wellesly.