The dangers of dating a fan of your college football rival

If you missed this week’s column on It’s a Southern Thing (SouthernThing.com), you can read it by clicking here. Below are the first paragraphs.

I’m a little worried about Baby Girl, y’all. Sometimes she seems determined to take the difficult road through life, much to her mama’s distress.

For instance, you would think, being born and raised in the South, she would know to choose her significant other from the appropriate dating pool, by which I mean from those who root for the same college football team as she does.

But no. She likes to live on the edge. Instead, she chose a sweetie – we’ll call him Sugar Buns, mainly because that name has the highest likelihood of embarrassing them and the thought tickles me – who attended the biggest rival of her own college. Let me just lay this out for you: She went to Auburn, he went to Alabama. Now you understand how dire the situation is.

She has apparently given her poor mother no thought at all in this equation. I mean, what will Thanksgiving be like, with the Iron Bowl looming menacingly while we make small talk over turkey and pretend the game is all in good fun?

And, Lord help, what if they get married? Have children? Have they even considered the stress this will put on me and the future in-laws? For every Auburn onesie I buy, they will buy two pairs of Bama booties and a miniature regulation jersey. And then I’ll be forced to sneak in and paint the nursery orange and blue in the middle of the night and things could really escalate. My point is, it would be a constant struggle for Sugar Buns Jr. (not to mention poor me, forced to paint by the glow of a nightlight in the middle of the night.)

I know Baby Girl had her reasons. She chose Sugar Buns because he’s smart, successful, self-sufficient and good-looking … yeah, yeah, whatevs. …

Before football season starts, I’ll share a few things Baby Girl’s beau (and others like him) should keep in mind if he ends up watching a game in our Auburn household:

1. There will be no excessive celebration. If Bama makes a touchdown, he will not offer: high-fives, exploding fist bumps or even a hushed “boo-ya.” He is to sit quietly, head bowed in shared mourning, until Auburn scores and then watch while we celebrate. Now is that so difficult? Click here to read the full column.