Are you ready for some Footbaaaaall?

For those of you who are worried that it's all baby talk and kitchen construction around the Bowden household, fear not! For Fall has arrived, and with it comes a time honored tradition- Fantasy Football.

oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Dustin and I are now embarking on our fifth season of FFB, and the craziness of our current household has not slowed down the pretend-sports action. We're continuing in our mixed-gender "Battle For Supremacy" league (which consists of about 2 people we're familiar with, along with 8 of their hooligan frat friends), but we each have separate leagues as well. After a couple years of co-managing a team, Dustin is now a full fledged member of the "Women Can't Win" league with his Pittsburgh friends, (which could be more appropriately named- "Women Aren't Allowed to Even Enter the Competition). And I am now the league manager of the rival group- "Men Can't Menstruate" (ok, it might not be the best name, but after five years, we can't change it now.)

I had no idea I would like FFB as much as I do....I originally got involved as a way to

help me tolerate Dustin's incessant football viewing, but I've really gotten into it. It does get me interested in more games and players, but it also satisfies my competitive urge, gives me one more online forum to waste time on, and allows me to expand my smack-talk skills.

One of the best parts of being in multiple leagues though, is seeing the difference in how a guys' and girls' league function. The "Battle" league only has two girls out of twelve participants, and the online draft is always full of sexual innuendo, inappropriate comments about people's mothers, and highly-informed snarky comments about player picks that I only occasionally understand. And when Dustin hosted the "WCW" live draft a couple weeks ago, our house was a den of testosterone...nothing but banana pepper pizza, and beer as far as the eye could see. The guys were camped out in front of their computers, cheat sheets, and magazines, and each round was held to a strict time limit, inclusive of an alarm for slow-pokes.

The girls league on the other hand, is a little more "loosey-goosey". We held our live draft last week and as always, it was a mixture of mock-seriousness, and complete girlie ridiculousness. And it is different....Our first year, we found out one of our girls was pregnant because she declined the customary first round toast. The next year we we were heckled by the pizza delivery guy who could NOT get over a group of girls participating in FFB. And we've been known to embrace the football theme in our own way- opting for cute football field table cloth for the snacks, or even a cake in the shape of a stadium!

But by far my favorite parts of the girls league are the memorable quotes from the draft. This year we have a pretty even split between returning members and rookies, which made for some choice comments. Some of the best:

• "I should probably draft Eli Manning because he's so cute!"
• "Are you drafting all Ravens?" "No...[pause]...but only because my husband told me not to."
• "I have to leave early...can you draft for me? Here's my strategy: Don't draft anyone from Cleveland or Cincinnati."
• "I'm going to try to collect all the Williams"
• "Oooh, Mark Sanchez...I've had my eye on him since college."
• "Who did you draft? Emmanuel Lewis?" "Um no. That's the little black kid from Webster."

Yes, we are clearly forces to be reckoned with.

And so begins our season....week one is almost wrapped, and I've not only lost both of my games, but I also may have incorrectly predicted the winner of every single matchup in my girls league. I wish you better luck...Unless you're in my league, and then I hope you choke on a Tostito. Not fatally. Just enough to keep you from stealing any of the good free agents. Not that I would know who they are.