The Olympics are coming. When will they be here again? I do not know. But when I think ‘the Olympics are coming one day’ I feel my palms sweat in anticipation. I do not care about sports when they are just one sport but when they are all the sports it is the Olympics and I breathe hard when I think about all the sports I will care about.
I will care about diving, which is falling. I will know things about what makes a fall a good fall or a bad fall. Right now, I do not know this. All falls look the same to me. Soon, the mighty register of my baritone will ring out over my empty living room as I deliver my verdict on the fall. GOOD FALL, I shall boom as I attempt to sandwich one sandwich inside another sandwich. BAD FALL, I shall mutter as my neighbors call to complain that my apartment smells like pizza grease and cat fur.
My neighbor is Tristan and he says, “The Olympics are when Bob Costas had pink eye.” Tristan knows as many facts about the Olympics as there are Olympic rings (five).
I will know things about soccer, which is called football, and that is one of the things I will know about it. I will know when some kicks are good and some kicks are bad. The football games will be on late in the night and early in the morning and yet I will still watch them. I will never again feel this amount of passion for anything else in my life. Do not contact the emergency services when you hear my howls, Tristan, for it will be soccer time and they will be my soccer howls.
Women’s beach volleyball? Yes, I will know it. There are two of them on the team and I will imagine what their working relationship is like. Are they friends outside of volleyball? Are they friends inside of volleyball? I do not know how to perform surgery or keep my cat from eating thumbtacks, but I will know the intricate secret mysteries of volleyball.
Where are my children? What time is it? How big is an official regulation rugby pitch? I will know the answer to one of these questions.
Michael Phelps? Ryan Lochte? Who will be the new swim man I will know? Trick question: I will know all the swim men, and the swim women besides. All the pool wizards who flash through the chlorinated water will be known to me and to those with whom I speak. Yes, Tristan, these are the 200 meter swimmers. Give me my Domino’s, Tristan. I watch swim alone!
Is ping pong a sport in the Olympics? I will know this. I do not know it now.
As I drink my seltzer I say, what is curling? Right now it is as cryptic to me as one of the many riddles in the Egyptian pyramids. And yet soon I will know as much about it as the guy who solved that riddle and did the stuff. I can’t remember who he was or what he did because I have been preparing for the Olympics by purging my brain of facts that are not about the Olympics. Sh, Tristan. It is almost the Olympics.
Is there an election coming up? Yes. It is me electing to watch the Olympics.
Prepare yourself. In case this is not known to you: the Olympics are coming.
I don’t know how to express how much I love this. Hope we can learn more about Tristan’s five Olympics facts.
Omg.
I will miss the Olympics so much this year.
This was perfection.
This made me legitimately laugh out loud so many times.
This is incredible.
TRISTAN.
Curling is sliding rocks into a bullseye – too bad it’s a winter sport, because I actually know about those. Summer sports are beyond me. It was too hot outside to wear my black hoodie and black jeans in high school, and I haven’t learned anything since 2014 so I never caught up.
I’ve convinced many a Tristan to join me in becoming far too invested in sports we’ve never played with people we’ll never meet from places we forgot existed since the last Olympics.
50/50 chance we’re not on speaking terms by closing ceremonies. I’m unbothered. Not everyone was cut out for Olympic viewing.
Yes. Excellent Olympics coverage!