Respite. That’s what Super Bowl week gives us, respite for one otherwise dreary winter week from the cares of the world. The primary campaigns will continue, but we won’t have to pay as much attention to them. The war in Iraq will grind on, but at a muted volume.

That’s probably the best thing about the Super Bowl — its timing. There is no worse time in those parts of the country where winter is a harsh presence than the end of January and the beginning of February. It’s smack dab in the middle of Winter, still three weeks before pitchers and catchers, six weeks before March Madness, eight weeks before the magnolias bloom at Augusta National. It’s not bad time of year; it’s the worst.

And to save us, the National Football League, in its infinite wisdom and mercy, has given us Super Bowl Week, a flight of sweat-soaked fantasy set in a relatively exotic climate, where adults go for their equivalent of sprint break.

Everybody who is anybody will be there, the town crawling with B- and C-list celebrities all week with the A-listers joining them for the weekend. There to chronicle it all will be every conceivable outlet for news and gossip, from 10-year-old kids representing Nickelodeon to fashionistas and evangelicals and rappers and MTV types.

Talking heads will be reporting on writers who are writing about the TV crews who are filming the columnists opining on the talking heads reporting on the writers.

Players will be asked “boxers or briefs?” They’ll be asked what role God plays in the game plan of their lives. Someone will ask them for a shout out to the fans in Korea and Argentina and Australia and China and every point in between. If they were a tree, what kind of tree would they be? How about if they were a sandwich? A dog? A motor vehicle? A pizza?

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Flying on the hardwood, racing on the rink, getting physical on the gridiron, and much more. more photos

At some point, they may even be asked about the football game.

And we’ll eat it up, grow fat on it, become so consumed by it that we won’t be able to make to Sunday without running out for a 52-inch HD monitor to watch it on.

So buy a square in the office pool, start laying up food and drink for the big day, get in an argument at the coffee machine and curse the lucky stiffs who get to be there at the biggest show in American Sports.

They don’t call it super for nothing.