Football fever... or is it?

There is no missing that the UEFA European Football Championships are set to begin in just over a week's time. Virtually every store from La Poste to the pharmacies are selling football paraphernalia. Need a Czech umbrella? A Croatian key chain? How about a standard Swiss squeegee? Look no further than your neigbourhood grocery store. The proverbial icing on the cake is a 15-meter-wide, helium-filled football perched over the infamous Jet d'Eau. My prediction is, that come June 7, Geneva will come unglued--and distinctly un-Swiss--with football fever. Now, more than ever, I am glad we live in the campagne. The more vineyards between us and the chaos, the better.

Despite our decided rurality, I can't say our home is completely immune to the general hum of anticipation. Take Mighty Mouse: last week she came home clutching a stack of cartes de foot (football cards).

"Where'd you get those?" I asked.

"Matt gave them to me."

"That was generous of him." Actually, it was extremely generous--as she laid them out on the table, I noted two highly coveted Swiss players. I figured she would pitch them once she discovered there wasn't a single girl in the bunch. Instead, she stacked them carefully and slipped them into her Winnie the Pooh handbag.

Hmm... Something tells me there's a bit more than football fever going on.