48 hours for now there will be 2 teams fighting for the right to call themselves champions of the National Football League. For the rest of us, Sunday marks another Super bowl party where there will be plenty of food, liquor, women and weed (especially if the game is a blow out). Let’s be real there will be these types of people at the party: those who love the game, those who want to eat, those who want to snapchat with football emojis and those that want to watch This is Us afterwards. To make sure that you have an eventful party please take a look at some of these rules.

1. Television

Look if you hosting a Super bowl party, you must have a Hi—Def TV. With these new TV advancements the bare minimum is a high definition TV. We are too old for pliers and aluminum foil on the antenna to generate a signal. Face it your friends have come over to watch commercials, the game and This is Us on a Hoshi Toshi not a TV made for a bathroom.

2. Kids

If your kids have to be breastfed, changed frequently or can’t keep still please try to find them a babysitter. Nobody got time to chase a kid around especially if there is fine china present or they got some rent-a-spoons from Rent a Center. Please monitor your kid at someone else’s house. If your kid is badder than a two year old then they ass and maybe even your ass needs to stay home or find a babysitter.

3. Know your liquor tolerance

It will be plenty of liquor at this party and you must know your tolerance before you embarrass yourself. It will probably be some fine women at this party and you might be able to snag a young tenderloin; but if you drunk like Groove from House Party then your chances will shrink as fast as Mario hitting an object. Nothing worse than a drunken person in someone’s basement. Know your limits

4. Ask permission before you bring someone

Imagine you tell a girl to dress up nice because we are going out and BOOM you are at your friend’s basement and all the other girls is like, “who invited her? Why is dressed like that? I guess Myron gonna give Diamond a ride home” You need to make sure you have received clearance from the host before you bring anyone else to their house.

5. Bringing Something

If you are asked to bring something please come thru in the clutch like a perfect transmission. Fellas, if the host asks you to bring some liquor don’t bring a 6 pack of Corona Light beer but the whole time you drinking Henny straight. Are you kidding me-Reggie miller voice? Ladies, you aren’t exempt. If you are bringing food please know your audience. Do not and I repeat do not bring all vegan food to a super bowl party. Now I know you may have seen Carmen Green’s Super bowl vegan recipes on social media (shout out to you for bringing awareness and all that) and think ‘hey that’s a good idea” but it’s not. For one, she is a vegan and furthermore we aint trying to eat that shit if steak, chicken, nachos, hot wings, pizza, subs are on the menu. Have you ever been to a tailgate and you show up with the vegetable tray? What is normally their response? Exactly…Don’t be that guy.

6. Making a plate

This rule is strictly for those with significant others who have to stay home with the kids because they didn’t follow rule 2. Please please please don’t go to this super bowl party and not bring home a plate for your lady.

Make sure you do one of the following:

1. Ask her did she eat before you leave
2. Ask her do you want something to eat before you leave
3. Bring her a plate
4. All of the above
5. None of the above

If you choose E then you are stupid and your lady with some gas from her Wives Group on GroupMe may result in burning all your things in your car like Angela Bassett did in waiting to exhale. And to make matters worse she might delete your player on NBA2K so your road to 99 is now a zero. For real don’t be that guy ever.

7. Please have an assortment of food

If you are hosting a super bowl party, you should have an assortment of food. Think of it as a low budget Golden Corral or a weekend selection at the refac. Make sure you have water, soda and other drinks beside alcohol because you have to work tomorrow and you can’t call off work the next day. You are too old to play the Ferris Bueller card and you are also too old to be showing up at work looking like Weekend at Bernie’s.

 

 

“Yooooo. My name is Sonny and I am overweight”

“Hiiii, Sonny”

A few weeks back I went to the doctor for a normal checkup and as usual this is the conversation I have with the nurses:

Nurse: step on the scale Mr. Grayson

Me: aight

Nurse:  well 300+ pounds. What type of diabetes do you have?

Me: none for real, I’m just big

Nurse: really, let me check your vitals

Me: That’s a bet

Nurse: imma need the super-size cuff because this one won’t fit

Me: oh word that’s wzup

Nurse: wow your vitals checked out fine Mr. Grayson. The doctor will see you in a minute.

Now this is normal for me so I wasn’t surprised by the comments but I loved the fact that I was able to silence her with my results. The doctor comes in and he’s going over the results and of course weight is the topic of discussion. The irony of it all is that he’s has a Santa clause gut but I don’t trip because I don’t let my weight define me. Don’t get me wrong it is a part of who I am but I will continue to flourish anyway. See I have always been a bigger person since birth and always the biggest person in the crew.

As a kid it was difficult because some opportunities I wasn’t able to have such as playing rec football. I will never forget that day, I was 11 years old standing in line with my mom and my sister and she was so proud and then they weighed me and said, ‘due to your weight and our insurance policy you won’t be able to play recreational football’. I was furious and I remember that was the first time thinking this big boy shit is whack. I guess its back to my Arizona husky jeans and Izods with some snickerdoodles from the Great Cookie. But then I’m watching TV and I see Biggie Smalls on the screen with women on each side and this dude instantly became my idol. He was bigger than me, in my opinion uglier than me and he aint give a fuck. I wanna be like this guy. For example, Biggie Smalls said, ‘heart throb never, black and ugly as ever; however…” Now stop right there, you can’t say however after a statement like that. You are finished. There is no comeback from that, but for Biggie to end that line with “however, I stay coogi down to the socks, rings and watch filled with rocks” was euphoria. It gave me more confidence than ever so this notion of being big wasn’t cool man fuck that if Biggie Smalls can do it so can I.

Sure high school presented a different challenge but fuck it you have to go through the bad to recognize what’s good. High school was an interesting time period. Sure the braces, haircuts from my mom didn’t help my situation but I was introduced to football and that neutralized a lot of emotions that I had going on. It wasn’t until I got to Morgan State where I was like oh shit, it mad big niggas out here and they are all flourishing. Aww shit now big and black is back baby baybee uhhhhh. Of course I couldn’t be sloppy and I had to always put my best foot forward. Despite my size, I was able to do all the shit skinny dudes did and even better to be honest. Case in point, from 2001-2003, I was at every club every weekend getting busy on the dance floor. To this day some people remind me of my dancing moves back in the day. From the ankle down is light; it’s the rest of the body that’s heavy. Even in my Greek life, I’m proud to say that on my line, “I’m the only big boy on this gig”. People didn’t expect a big fella like me to move this way but I flourish because I love the underdog role. I love being underestimated and proving them wrong.

Fast forward a few years now I’m 34 married with 3 kids and tons of life to live and the doctor says:

Doctor: we need to implement diet, exercise and possibly weight loss surgery.

Me: Weight loss surgery Doc. damn son I’m that big.

Doctor: I mean your weight crept up a little bit but I can tell you work out frequently so I’m not worried about the exercise. On the other hand, a word to the wise is that your heart is your biggest muscle. Even though you have a huge chest and big triceps if the heart fails then everything goes so the weight surgery can definitely prolong your life in conjunction with diet and exercise. Don’t think the surgery is the beginning and closing. You have to complete a program first and who knows you may lose 30-40 pounds while in the program and surgery isn’t even an option. Just think about it. See you in a month Mr. Grayson.

Me: aight Doc.

The whole ride I was thinking about life and how it would be if I wasn’t here and seeing my wife and kids go on without their protector was horrifying. Normally, I don’t have any emotions toward anything but that conversation had me thinking like A Boogie after he got shot in Paid in Full. Shit, I got a CPAP so I’m breathing different so something has to give. Ultimately, this is a decision I have to make but it isn’t the physical because I don’t mind a diet and I love working out.  I use my daughter Morgan as motivation for working out because she always calls me “Mr. Incredible” and I love playing sports so being active isn’t the problem. This is really a psychological issue for me. My whole life I have been big and I dealt with the bullying, teasing and mean comments from people and transformed into a cool motherfucka and I preserved through this. So if I do this, am I erasing my identity? What are the pros and cons of this? Am I conforming to what society deems as healthy? Am I just joining a new wave? These are the questions that I ask myself and every time I ask that question I answer the question differently. Will I be looked at the same as a smaller person? Like the doctor said, I can do the program lose weight and surgery not even being an option. Am I scared of surgery? Being a smaller size definitely has some benefits especially when I’m in the sheets with the misses but at what cost will it take for me to get there. At this point in my life, I’m living for myself as well as other therefore my actions affect everybody so we will see how this journey goes. I didn’t get this body overnight so I won’t lose this body overnight but the process is what this is all about it. Cheers to the next steps of this journey. Pass me a diet henny and baked chicken box from Sunny’s.