Olympics!

My wife has had a rough week.  She has been doing everything around the house, taking care of the kids all day and all night and getting almost zero help from her significant other.  I’m not on a business trip.  I’m not at some retreat somewhere or volunteering all my time to help some poor humans who really need it.

My wife has been doing all the work because I have been sitting on the couch.  Watching the Olympics.

My wife likes Gymnastics and was intrigued with the first couple times she saw swimming finals, but other than that she is completely baffled on why someone would feel the need to sit on the couch and watch 12+ hours of this stuff a day.  If you or someone you know is asking this same thing – please read on.  I hope to help you completely understand.

I am a man.  Competition is in my genes and since we live in a “civilized” society I cannot just simply raise an army and start taking over territory anymore to prove how great a man I am. That leaves me with sports.  I love them and I played them for my entire childhood.  I, unfortunately, was not able to turn that into a career and I am getting to the age where even playing ball in the backyard with the kids has produced an alarmingly high amount of injuries lately.  Also it’s hard to find the appropriate number of 30 year-olds to play a pickup game of tackle football when I’m really in the mood.

That leaves me with watching sports on TV.  I’m from Cleveland and I root for all of the teams in my area but there are a couple problems with the NFL, MLB, and NBA that still leave me unfulfilled. 

1.       Cleveland sport teams have been mysteriously absent from any type of championship for quite a few years.

2.       While I hate Pittsburgh and I hate New York – I really only hate them because of the sports “rivalry”  I really don’t hate the actual cities like I hate Russia (Keeping the cold war alive folks).

3.       Almost every single player on Cleveland teams are not actually from Cleveland (Thanks Lebron you douche.)  In the Olympics – all of the people I am rooting for are from the actual place that they are representing.

So now that you understand the backstory – this is why I will wish every day for the next couple weeks that I could quit my job and watch the Olympics all day every day.  This is why my TV will not be playing one single minute of Dora or Cailou for the foreseen future.  This is why my wife has an extremely tiring couple of weeks ahead of her.

1.       America is full of amazing athletes and we are in the running for basically every event.  And there is nothing that I like to see more than America beating the best athletes from other countries.

2.       The athletes I am rooting for are American.  They represent America and they HAVE to be from there.  I love that.

3.       American pride is severely lacking based on the shape of things and nothing makes me feel better about this country than when we beat people at things.

4.       In my head – when America beats Romania in synchronized diving - that directly equates to us being better than them and having the ability to immediately take over their country if we wished.

5.       Let’s be honest – we have not been involved in a war like WW2 for 60 – 70 years.  Our country has not been entirely united to fight and stop another huge world power that was evil and trying to take over Europe (and maybe the world?) since then (Cold war kinda).  We have fought in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq etc.  Not exactly the cream of the crop when it comes to Olympic athletes.  The Olympics allows me to once again feel like it’s us against the evil Germans, the evil Russians, the evil Japanese, and the evil Chinese (that war is coming folks).  And a lot of the time we win.  Feels great.

To sum up the entire argument in a few short sentences – here is what you can tell your wife.  I am a man.  I am not allowed to raise an army and attack other countries.  I am not able to hop onto a football field and tackle Arian Foster.  My ability to compete and beat people in order to fulfill this genetic need I have is becoming more and more limited as each day passes.  Watching America beat all the other countries satisfies this need and allows me to go on with my life without constantly feeling like I need to further prove myself in some competition, be it sports or even fighting some dude on the street if that’s what it takes.  I can go on living.  At least for a short time.  In 4 years the itch starts to come back.  But don’t worry – we have planned ahead.  As soon as the itch comes back – we will do this all over again.

Rio in 2016!  Can’t wait.