Olympic Haters, You Came to the Right Place

I know this makes me un-American but I do not get the Olympics.

I mean, I GET them but I’m not INTO them.  Yeah, ok, there’s a bunch of young people, in the prime of their lives, pushing their bodies beyond their limits, yadda, yadda. It all makes me – the very definition of a natural athlete if ever there was one – very, well, tired. And apparently, they’re pushing their bodies in other naughty and exhausting ways as well. Bunch of dirty little monkeys.

But I don’t get this mass-patriotic-competitive-hysteria thing every four years. It’s like we’ve all been hypnotized into caring about things like medal counts and allowing grown people to wear berets and knee socks.

Plus, it really jacks with my TV viewing schedule. This past weekend while I was ironing shirts, I turned on my go-to channel for all things ironing, Bravo, and instead of a Real Housewives marathon or something, it was TENNIS?? What the hell? I’m not about to watch tennis while ironing. Luckily my second choice in all things ironing, HGTV, was not broadcasting women’s badminton or some crap.

True story: I did not know that handball was a real sport. When I was growing up in El Paso, handball was something the cholos played and it involved a small blue ball, a wall and hitting said ball with your hand against the wall. Sort of like a low-rent, border town version of that yuppie stalwart, racquetball.

But handball isn’t like that at all. It’s more like soccer, only, the players can use their hands. Either way, I can’t really get into it.

My Olympic-loving partner XFE is all into it, however. The other day, I caught him watching archery. ARCHERY. He didn’t even want to see Hunger Games, for crying out loud.

Also: let me get this straight – we JUST finished watching the very same people in the men’s road race participate in the Tour de France last week. And now,  what? Are we expecting a different outcome? Didn’t we already settle all this? Why can’t that poor guy who JUST won enjoy his victory for a minute without having to defend it again?

You should see XFE during the winter Olympics. He becomes obsessed with curling every four years.

We skipped the whole opening ceremonies thing. We watched the Beijing ones and were totally confused. From the little snippets I saw of the London ones (what was up with that giant baby in a bed??), it looked like a whole bad acid trip or something. Which, from my experiences living in London for six months in the 1990s, is about right.

Actually, turns out the Queen was a bit bored by the whole opening ceremony thing too and preferred to check her nails. I bet she was wishing she’d gone for the Union Jack shellac.

I do kinda like the whole dressage events. That’s probably much more my speed. Let the horse do all the work while I wear a fancy top hat and frilly ascot. Plus, since the royals are into their horses, there’s a good chance there will be a Princess Kate sighting.