An important fact about tonight's Pats-Saints exhibition: the wife will be attending.

I will not.

A guy at her office had tickets he couldn't use, and offered them up to the first takers. So, she and some of her work buddies got together and claimed them. Leaving none for spouses, friends, or other such people.

Thanks.

I know, it's pre-season, why should I care, except for three reasons:

1. The wife doesn't like football. Although she's now amended her stance to disliking my habit of watching football. So it's not the Pats, but the other NFL, NCAA, AFL, and CFL games.

I don't buy that for a minute.

2. The only Pats game I've been to was a dismal affair which I think I've mentioned here before: a loss to the Seahawks in a cold drizzle in the upholstered toilet that was (at the time) Sullivan Stadium.

3. I've not been to Gillette Stadium. That's really what I'm most irritated about. Though perhaps I can talk the wife into going to the US-Panama World Cup qualifier on October 12. It may wind up being irrelevant (a win against Mexico next month gets us in), but if not it could be the clincher, which would be cool.