The true battle of Super Bowl weekend takes place nowhere near a football field.
Its players aren't protected by helmets and shoulder pads.
They are protected by winter coats and shopping carts.
Their tunnel onto the playing field is a parking lot and the portal from which they enter the game is opened by stepping on a black rubber mat.
They are shoppers in a pre-game frenzy and they have come to do battle in Marc's.
* * *
Marc's is always crowded. That's a given. But, Saturday afternoon, it was packed.
It was not only the day before Super Bowl Sunday, it was also the day before the Great Arctic Freeze was predicted to hit our area.
Partiers and survivalists. No wonder the place was packed.
Anyway, the battle began in the parking lot where the wind had already picked up and was whirling the snow around in gusts. Every legitimate spot was filled as was every nook and cranny a car could be stowed in.
Whenever a spot opened up, there were always two cars in a face-off for it.
I finally found a place to park and trudged - bent forward at a 45-degree angle - toward the store in a wind that was much colder and stronger than it had been 20 minutes earlier.
I went inside to get a cart but there already was a shopper at each row, tugging on the end buggy, trying to free it from the others it had firmly latched onto.
Finally, one of the tuggers managed to free not one shopping buggy but a block of buggies. I calmly walked around her and pulled one from the row she had left behind.
And onto the playing field I went.
In a grocery store, everyone is an equal. Every shopper with a buggy is like every other shopper with a buggy. Talent, strength - and stature - account for nothing. There is no rich and poor, no privileged and underprivileged.
No respect for others.
In the produce section, there was a buggy backup behind a shopper having a conversation with the man who was restocking the produce.
In the cheese section, there was a buggy backup between two shoppers having a conversation about someone's divorce.
The main aisle was like a highway during rush-hour with a lot of braking and near-misses.
I turned into the dairy aisle and parked my shopping cart as I studied the prices of half-and-half. I was engrossed in my comparison shopping when a woman in a parka and a ponytail craned her neck around to the front of me and said, "Hey, move your cart. Everyone is tripping over it."
I snapped out of my concentration and started apologizing and reaching for my cart to get it out of the way when all of a sudden I realized I had nothing to apologize for.
My cart was fully off to the side, right in front of me, in no one's way.
Then I got angry.
"Hey, who are you?" I called to the ponytail. "The traffic cop?"
My sarcasm was lost on her. She turned around, put her hand on her hip and said, "Yeah, I am."
Gulp.
I looked at the carton of half-and-half in my hand and suddenly wondered what I was doing in the dairy aisle.
That's not where you go Super Bowl shopping. I was a partier, not a survivalist.
I turned the cart around and headed to the back of the store where I belonged.
At the beer cooler - where people are friendly and there are never too many buggies.
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