
                                 Miami Mischief
                                 by Dave Barry

     
                  Greetings from Official Super Bowl Columnist
 
          MIAMI  -  Well, the excitement over  Super  Bowl  MXVCLXIMOOBAA 
       continues  to build, with many fun events crowding  the  calendar.  
       This  afternoon,  for example, South Florida's  top  business  and 
       civic  leaders will gather at a party sponsored by Gillette  ("The 
       Official  Razor  of  the Super Bowl") for  a  gala  wrist-slitting 
       ceremony.
 
          Ha  ha!  Just kidding.  But as a trained observer, I  have  de-
       tected signs of concern that Super Bowl Week is not going  exactly 
       as planned.
 
          It  started with the arrival of refugee Nicaraguans, who are  a 
       gentle,  stadium-dwelling people fleeing poverty  and  oppression, 
       but who failed to make prior arrangements with the Super Bowl Host 
       Committee and therefore are not listed as the Official Refugees of 
       the Super Bowl.
 
          You  would think these people would at least make a  few  phone 
       calls  before  influxing into an area that is  very  busy  peeling 
       shrimp in preparation for the most important football game of  the 
       entire last several weeks, you know?
 
          And then, on top of that, we have been having all this unsched-
       uled  Civil  Unrest, which has resulted in  the  following  upbeat 
       message being beamed from Miami to potential visitors all over the 
       world:  "Come on down!  We'll burn your car!"
 
          The  only  potential  good that could have  resulted  from  the 
       unrest  would have been if a piece of flying rubble had  at  least 
       temporarily  disabled corporate beer spokesdog  "Spuds"  MacKenzie 
       ("the  Official  Mutant Ferret-Like Transvestite Creature  of  the 
       Super Bowl"), but even that didn't happen.
 
          And  thus Miami retains unchallenged possession of the  coveted 
       title, "The Gerald R. Ford of American Cities," in the sense  that 
       whenever the spotlight of international attention shines upon  us, 
       we  manage  to bonk our civic head.  Another example was  in  1987 
       when the Pope came here, and  --  this is the truth  --  he almost 
       got struck by lightning.
 
          But  let's not dwell on the negatives.  Let's instead focus  on 
       the excitement of the upcoming Big Game between two very  exciting 
       teams whose names I plan to reveal in a future column once I  find 
       out  who  they  are.  I assume they're listed  somewhere  in  this 
       Buick-sized  mass of press releases I got from the National  Foot-
       ball League ("The Official Football League of the Super Bowl").
 
          In  reading them so far, I've gleaned one piece of  good  news:  
       This  year's halftime show will not involve "Up With People,"  the 
       group of young entertainers who are so cheerful, upbeat and  posi-
       tive about America that after several minutes of exposure to  them 
       you want to apply for Soviet citizenship.
 
          But I'm sure everything will be fine.  I'm sure that everything 
       will  go smoothly and that we'll be a Happy Community again  by  5 
       p.m. Sunday, when the referee blows the whistle to start the game, 
       and  as a worldwide television audience watched breathlessly,  the 
       kicker  takes  three steps forward, firmly plants his  left  foot, 
       swings his right leg back and gets struck by lightning.
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