Is it me or has the last week or so felt like the most, dare I even say it, normal couple of days since the world was introduced to the coronavirus pandemic?
Let me try to explain. Whether it was Sunday's big game or the big crowds around our public schools Monday morning, the last 72 hours felt different.
The car lines at schools across Hamilton County were the longest they have been in months and months.
Yes, school leaders have tried to maintain as much normalcy as possible through this abnormal time with floating, hybrid phases of in-person and virtual learning and opt-outs. But at times that has produced a lack of consistency and plenty of frustration.
On Monday, the brake lights and buzz around school building drop-offs were more terrific than traffic.
And that was just the beginning of a new week after a weekend that included everything from weather excitement to the biggest spectacle in American pop culture.
Sunday's light dusting of snow punctuated the old line of "If you don't like the weather in Chattanooga, wait a few hours."
And maybe the most normal moment of recent days came from the most abnormal football player to ever snap on a helmet. Tom Brady was the star of the Super Bowl (again) as he secured his place as having more NFL titles than any franchise in the league.
Brady would have been the primary talk around the "water cooler" today. It sure feels as if the last time we congregated around a water cooler or the office coffee pot a Bush was in the White House.
Around that water cooler today, we would be talking about Brady's amazing feats - that he's been in more than 17% of the Super Bowls ever played and now has been on the winning side in 13% of all of them. We would be talking about the commercials, the ones that succeeded and the ones that failed.
Sure, Will Ferrell was hilarious as we extend our international battles to Norway. We'd all guess the percentage of folks who actually knew that was The Boss doing a commercial.
Heck, we could even ponder if the best of the commercials have come and gone, peaking in the long-ago days before leaked clips on the internet and before Brady ruled Planet Pigskin.
We even likely would have debated how The Weeknd almost ruined the weekend, but that would still be OK because our Monday morning chatter felt like almost every pre-corona Monday I can recall.
In some ways, the NFL as a whole - which played all 269 of its scheduled games in a season that no one could envision - has been the most consistent part of our national fabric over the past 11 months.
And I for one was super appreciative of it after Tom Brady and Co. were the highlighted part of a highly normal few days.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com.