The Olympics

I thought I would bring the public up to date on the Olympics. The real Olympics –the spectator’s televised Olympics.

My wife took the gold medal for talking back to conceited athletes. She won a second gold medal for guffawing at their equally conceited coaches’ grammar, an event in which she was the only entrant. No one else in my family knows any grammar, thinks there is anything wrong with being conceited, or stops talking long enough to guffaw.

My son prevailed in eating Dove bars during equestrian competitions with a score of 4.0. My daughter took the silver in this event with a score of 3.611. The remaining .389 of the Dove bar fell on the floor where it was licked up by the cat, allowing that beast to win the bronze medal and make Olympic history.

In other sports, the following results were attained: My wife got the gold for muttering “They’re all insane” during diving competitions. My daughter placed first in her traditional specialty of singing along to national anthems without knowing the words at award presentations. And an unusual four-way tie was achieved briefly in failure to understand the rules of volleyball by my wife, daughter, son and cat. The cat, however, was disqualified from competition, and indeed banished from the television room for life, for ingesting the leaves of a potted plant.

My friend Al placed first in the unofficial sport of explaining the results of gymnastics competitions. His theory is too complicated to explain except over Sea Breezes in the Oyster Bar, but suffice it to say that it involves an international conspiracy in which Iraq, Vladimir Putin and the price of gold all play their parts. (At the other unofficial sport of thinking up new Olympic sports my friend Dave captured the laurel — and also got to pick up the check — when he stood on the table, swayed in slow motion and uttered the memorable words “Greco-Roman Bungee jumpiing.”)

It may sound as if it was an unsatisfying Olympics for me, but I assure you that nothing could be farther from the truth. Ensconced before a high resolution TV, and armed with a home equity loan to pay for it, I set an Olympic standard that will probably never be equaled. I saw every minute of every telecast. Impossible as it sounds, I mounted my exercise bicycle and pedalled away as the clichés of Bob Costas flew past like the members of the Dream Team running down court for easy layups. The technique for the epee was dissected as minutely as the atom, but still I scarcely flinched. Nothing could throw me off form: not the scoring of boxing matches, not ceaseless solicitations to spend even more time and money to watch even more boxing matches on cable TV, not the fact that golf has now become an Olympic sport.

Controversies flared on many subjects. The disputants elaborated their positions in a disjointed, elliptical fashion that would have delighted Franz Kafka (a famous European albeit neither bicycle racer nor track star). I did not understand a word of these disputes, any more than I understood a word of what happened to the land-surveyor in The Castle, but I was as resolute in my purpose as the land-surveyor was in his. I splashed water on my face during the soup commercials and persevered.

Now, alas, all is over. Gone, the thrill of victory; forgotten, the agony of defeat. Cans of official Olympic beer lie crumpled and empty about my feet; the last of the official Olympic cat food has been lapped up from its dish. The Olympic flame scarcely sputters in the fondue pot. Iron man races and random episodes of “American Gladiators” — such are the barren prospects for the months ahead.

But next week it is back to the Oyster Bar for pina coladas and discussion of the next Olympics. Rumors abound. Only one thing is a certainty: no matter what happens to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or the Libertarian party, my friend Al will be positioned firmly at the bar until closing time, explaining to anyone who will listen the relationship between platform diving and the write-in ballot in Illinois.