Proven Theory

The last few days Pittsburgh has been dealing with SnOMG, Snowpocolypse or Snowmageddon-depending on who you talk to. Let's just say that it's been unreal. We got 2 feet of snow in 18 hours (it was predicted 4-12 inches before it started.)
My husband and I have "weathered" the storm fairly well. Better than some who have been without power for days because well-2 feet of snow seriously weighs down trees, which in turn fall and snap power lines.
Our heat went off the first night-just the heat-not the power. The next afternoon we sweet-talked our ancient furnace into relighting since it was "just" a gas air bubble issue. Problem Solved.

But here in our house we have a theory-or curse. It goes like this:

If a good football game is on-and there is the possibility of a power outage-the power will go out. It is a proven fact in out household:

My husband watches college football Saturdays from noon until it goes off-midnight usually. I am a football Saturday widow. He watches the NFL on Sunday-mostly the Steelers-but there are other teams he loves to watch, too.

In 2004, also known as the year of "Charlie, Frances, Jeanne and Ivan" in our house we lived in Florida.

First there was Charlie-we had a bullseye on our house so our city turned off the power-so we were evacuated to a friend's rental apartment-but the tv didn't work. No football for my husband who watches college football from noon until 2am. No worries-we thought-it was the beginning of the college season and he missed maybe 2 games.

Then came Frances-this is where you want to pay attention: We had power ALL Night during the hurricane. At 11:59 AM (not making this up) our power went out (remember, college football starts at noon). We were without power all day and the power came on after midnight. Literally 5 minutes AFTER the games were last game was over. No worries, right? Football Sunday will restore sanity. Nope. At 12:43 (Football starts at 1pm) the power went out. again. and guess what? It came on just after the Steeler/Miami game (the classic one where they played knee-deep in water) ended that night.

So 1 weekend does not prove a theory, right? Fast-Forward to Hurricane Jeanne. Exact same scenario: Power on at night, off just before college football, on at night, off before NFL-on sometime after midnight. Seriously. We could forecast whether a hurricane would hit our area based on the football schedule-and we.were.never.wrong.

So now we live in PA-and a full 36 hours after the SnOMG occurred we found ourselves watching the SuperBowl-until Half time when WE LOST POWER. Guess when it came on.