Every year before the Super Bowl, Dede ties me to a mast for several days to block me from dashing off to buy a 98-inch color TV for the big game. That method worked for Jason versus the Sirens — the original nasty women of Greek legend — and it works for me.

I don’t know why gigantic TVs call out so strongly with their sweet song: “Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,’’ my heart responds.

And I don’t know how Dede gets a ship mast into our house. But every February here it is.

It’s not as if I like the Super Bowl all that much. The broadcast is a 33-ring circus of excess. It has the riotous energy of Vegas, monster trucks, a battalion of rap singers, a Blue Angels flyby, a beer fest, 1,000 monkeys in a barrel and an imploding office building or two, all rolled in one.

And that’s just the pregame show.

Still, a part of me craves that 98-inch color TV with color so vibrant and sound so realistic that my life here seems a little shabby. I walk around the streets of West Lebanon and there are no cheerleaders, no confetti bursting from the skies, no team of announcers describing my every move.

“And here’s Mackie, walking down Maple Street. His gait is steady, he’s moving forward with purpose as he approaches Seminary Hill. I’ve never seen him look better.”

“You know, Tony, I think he’s fully recovered from that achilles twinge he felt last week.”

“Yes, Tom, that’s a non-factor now.”

“You know, Tony, Mackie’s determination brings to mind Henry David Thoreau, one of the all-time greats of American walking.”

“Who was he with, Tom?”

“The Boston Transcendentalists, I believe, Tony.”

“Great memories. Great memories. But back to Mackie, Tom, he’s picking up the pace on the uphill. There’s no quit in him. He’s going even faster now, Tom. HE COULD GO ALL THE WAY!”

“YES, YES, YES, HE MADE IT. What an inspiration.”

“And now for a message from our sponsor, Acme Hip Replacements, reminding you that you don’t have to put up with those worn-out original body parts. Replace them with something better. Now enhanced with AI that will have you doing the cha-cha — without a single dance lesson!”

My Fitbit says that during our association I have walked the equivalent of the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole, or 12,431 miles, as of Sept. 21, 2024. That sounds a bit high, even delusionally so, but who am I to argue with digital intelligence. In any case, here I am: so many steps and going nowhere.

I average over 10,000 steps a day, because ... what would be the point of walking 9,999?

Someone kidded me that I must be spending my walking hours thinking deep thoughts for this column. It would be better if I did. Actually, my mind delivers fragments of unusable notions, random declarations and little tunes. Sometimes when I have what seems to be an actual profound thought, I forget it by the time I get home. I remember once in a happy moment I realized I was humming the theme song from the Smurf cartoons. I was embarrassed for myself.

As for the Super Bowl, I may still be sore that in the early years, before it was all that super, I looked in the paper for the starting time and tuned in three hours early. I did not see that the small-print listing was for pre-game blather. I was in a lazy state of mind and the chair was comfortable, so I was OK for a while. But after an hour or so, I grew impatient for the game to begin. By the time it did, I was frazzled, exhausted by a quantity of commentary that could have recounted the history of World War II, if not the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

So now I don’t tune in a second earlier than the kickoff and I mute most of the commercials, just to show them. Whoever they are. I also boycott the overblown halftime show as a matter of principle. Unless they bring on Paul McCartney and the surviving musicians who played at Woodstock, I will have none of it. They barely fit in a football game as it is.

Our TV, by the way, is 43 inches on the diagonal. Compared with the televisions of my youth, little black and white sets in audacious cabinets, it is pretty great. I have discovered that if I want it to seem bigger, I just have to sit closer. The upgrade doesn’t cost me a penny.

And that’s super duper.

Dan Mackie lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.