That special feeling has filled the air. The wind has an extra bite. Conversation around the office picks up. Weekends feel much more important.

Football season has arrived, possibly my favorite part of the year.

I follow a lot of sports, but football seems to take precedence more and more each year. Sure, I’m still a soccer fanatic, but I can drift in and out of the seasons with my favorite team. Only the U.S. national team gets me worked up anymore.

I don’t get worked up about football, to be honest. I just get excited. Maybe it’s how well the games go with food and beer. Maybe it’s the gambling. Maybe it’s because I know the whole thing drives my wife nuts.

Yes, I live in a house divided by our interest in football. I love the game. She would be perfectly happy if it disappeared tomorrow.

Marketers have found many different ways to turn women into football fans. They have focused on the passion of the game, the looks of the players, the goofy pink shirts they can crank out.

My wife is impervious to it all. It’s just an uncivilized exercise in her mind. She doesn’t get any of that other stuff, although I am kind of happy that she wasn’t drawn in by pink apparel. That stuff is an abomination.

So what does a guy do when he can’t share his favorite sport with the person he loves? He uses it to annoy her. That’s the American way.

I know how she can’t understand the fascination people have with Penn State football. I never went there, but follow the team pretty closely. Part of that is because I moved here and became hooked. The other part is because my family has developed some deep ties in State College over the years.

So I try to work Penn State football into the conversation when I can. She fights back by trying to mock my interest in the team. Like when I said I was going out with a friend last weekend to see the Nittany Lions take on the nation’s number one team.

“You mean Penn State isn’t number one?”

That’s just plain, old mean, I tell you. So I guess the attempt to annoy can go both ways.

In a way, I deserve it. When she does sit down to do something in the same room where I am watching football, I will sometimes lob a trivia question or ask her opinion on something going on during the game.

She has decided that I’m just being mean when I ask her whether a team should be playing a two-deep zone or man-to-man coverage. So she pays me back, after rolling her eyes like only she can, of course.

All this back and forth can kind of distract me from the fun that football season brings, so I guess I will give it a rest. I’ll just sit back, watch my games and enjoy the banter with my friends like a good, mature adult.

Besides, you should have seen the look she gave me when I asked if she wanted to join one of my fantasy leagues.