A funny thing happens when the Seahawks make the playoffs. Seattle people who never before showed any interest in football suddenly want to talk about football. This includes the local media. Ordinarily, I'll go entire weeks during the season without hearing the Hawks mentioned, but these last two weeks, they've been the lead story. Well, maybe not the Seahawks, but certainly the wonderfulness of their fans.
My housecleaner came on Saturday with her boyfriend, who sometimes helps. He's a pleasantly dumb, 20 year old puppy whose only flaw is a desire to chat me up. On the upside, he's tall enough to fold blankets without dragging them through dog hair on the floor.
When they arrived, I was watching football. I turned it off in favor of putting on her favorite music.
"You don't have to do that," she said.
"Oh, he doesn't care about the game," he answered. "It's not the Seahawks!"
Don't say anything, John. Don't make eye contact.
It didn't help. He latched on to me. I wrote down what he said, because I wanted to be sure I got it right: "We don't usually watch football. But now that the Seahawks are in the playoffs, we're huge fans. Otherwise, it's like, you know, what's the point?"
You can't make this stuff up.