Oh The Irony!

I think I've mentioned somewhere along the line that I'm a Northwestern fan. I've had season tickets for football since graduating and can hold a fairly intelligent conversation on Northwestern football's history when called upon.

I go to all the games, and I'll admit that I had some serious angst this year on Halloween when we had a 3:30 game and trick or treating also started at 3:30. I couldn't decide what to do. Had the game been at 11am (normal start time), no question I would have gone and just been a little late to starting out trick or treating.

I'm not an obnoxious fan though, and I don't go totally all out. While I always make sure to wear purple, you'd never look at me and giggle. Well, ok maybe you'd giggle, but not because of what I was wearing.

So you can imagine my surprise when a package arrived for Little Miss this week from the Northwestern Athletic Office. I hadn't purchased anything, and I couldn't figure out how they even knew her name or address as I don't have the wee ones signed up for the Kids Club (yet).

I shook the box, and it was light. Tempted as I was, I refrained from opening it until she got home from preschool. That gave me a good two hours to ponder why she was receiving mysterious packages.



She was quite excited to open her very own package, so we quickly discovered that it contained another box.



Lo and behold, inside the box was a football. And not just any football. This is a football signed by Pat Fitzgerald, the football coach who pretty much walks on water at Northwestern. He was a star player while at Northwestern in the golden Rose Bowl days, and he was hired as head coach after the previous coach tragically passed away from a heart attack. He was the youngest coach in D-1 football, and he's brought back the swagger to Northwestern with our third bowl game in a row (to the Outback Bowl in Tampa this year).



So Little Miss did exactly what any other four year old would do when seeing such a great present in a box like this. She picked up the ball, tossed it forward onto the ground, rolled it on the ground a little bit, then picked it up to repeat the process.

I stood frozen in horror for a few moments before my mouth functioned.

AHHH! Put that down! That is not a toy! Do not throw that. Ever.

Ok, so I might maybe possibly have had a little stronger a reaction than necessary. Fortunately, Little Miss just looked up at me like I was nuts (I was errr am) and handed the ball to me before bounding away to play with something else.

The football is now enshrined in the sports room in our basement in the Northwestern section, happily ensconced in a football case I happened to have laying around.

So why did she get the ball?

Welllll, Northwestern this year had a giveaway each game. I of course entered to win a football at every single game (except the Halloween game that I sadly was forced to miss). The wee ones went to one game early in the year. My husband snickered, but I entered them to win a football at that game, too.

Little Miss apparently has a horseshoe tattooed somewhere that I don't know about. She goes to her first and only game ever, and she wins a football game. I've been going to football games long enough to have good seats for my season tickets, missing nary a game (except, tragically the Halloween game...), and I got zip.

Do you think it would work if I bought lottery tickets for her, too?