I’m really psyched for the Super Bowl, because it’ll be exciting to see if the Arizona Somethings can beat the Pittsburgh Whatevers to determine the world championship of a sport played exclusively in the United States.

It may seem odd I can get so worked up over a Super Bowl not involving my Chicago Bears, but I’m incredibly excited to see if my 19th favorite team can beat my 24th favorite. This is a major reason why I’m hosting a party Sunday afternoon. (The other reason is that I want an excuse to eat potato salad leftovers for the next month). And you can host one, too, provided you are good at picking Dorito crumbs out of your carpet.

You’ll need to have food on hand, but it’s impossible to get the right amount for the number of guests that’ll actually show up. If you buy one pound of deli meat, for example, 40 people will come. If you buy 20 pounds, it’ll be three people. If you buy eight pounds of deli meat, you will have 15 guests, but they will all be vegans.

A similar problem arises with beer, wherein if you buy some, your guests will arrive bearing six-packs; but if you don’t have any on hand, nobody will bring their own. The easy fix is to make the event “BYOB,” but then you run the very real risk that people will bring Miller High Life into your home, beer the Bush administration deemed too cruel to give Guantanamo detainees.

The one mitigating factor to the food problem is that you will be serving it to people you do not care for. Super Bowl parties present a unique hosting opportunity because you can invite all the people to whom you owe some social obligation but have no interest in talking to.

If you were hosting, say, a funeral, you would have to personally greet your guests, and listen to their stories about how your dear old whoever was such a loving caring blah blah blah. (Plus, instead of beer, funeral guests bring flowers. How are you going to get buzzed on flowers?)

But Sunday night, your guests will watch TV for four straight hours without any chance to converse. Nobody will bother you during the actual football portion because they could miss a major spinal injury, and nobody will bother you during the commercials because Super Bowl ads are the most important of the year, in that they are the most expensive. This year’s cost $100,000 per second, which works out to $525.6 billion per year, which is enough for Nancy Pelosi to pay all the poor people in America not to have children.

Anyway, people don’t care so much if they miss the really entertaining advertisements; it’s not as if they won’t be replayed for months to come. They just don’t want to miss the really bad commercials – the ones for outfits like the late Pets.com, commercials so horrendous (sock puppet dog) that it will cheer everyone up a few days later when the cost of the ad bankrupts the company.

The final step to hosting a proper Super Bowl party is HDTV ownership. Even if you don’t have a 65-inch plasma screen with 1080p resolution, it’s not too late to get one, provided you follow a few smart shopping tips. For example, you will want to get a view of what the TV looks like after dark, because most of the Super Bowl will occur after sunset.

So you should shop at night, preferably around 3 am. You’ll also want to bring along some burly teamsters, to help lift the TV. It could be chilly outside, so everybody should wear ski masks. Also, in case you happen to run into a manager, you should tell him details about his home address and his children’s names and ages. This personal touch will show him you are not “just another customer,” and he will probably let your ski-masked teamster friends carry out the television for free.

Yes, with the proper TV, guest list and food, this can be the best Super Bowl party you throw all year. If it’s anything like mine, you’ll find it the perfect environment to watch the premier sporting event of the year, and root, root, root for the Whoevers.

Scott is a third-year law student. He’s still eating last year’s potato salad.