I love the Olympics.  They make you feel and do strange things, such as:

(1) Mutter to yourself, after a bottle of vegetable oil topples out of the top cabinet, “Oh man.  So close.  It sucks to fall.”

(2)  Hold your head up high and prance around on the pads of your feet as you walk across the kitchen floor towards the trash to dump used coffee grounds.  Because you normally walk that way and all.

(3) Comment on the form and mistakes of random gymnasts you’ve never heard of before last week who fall off the pommel horse.  After all those years of studying the pommel horse.  Finally, a chance to show off your knowledge.

(4) Look in the mirror and think, “I could so totally rock that.  I’m hitting the YMCA tomorrow.”

(5) Ponder nicer looking women’s swimsuits.  I mean really.

(6) Pray that someday, your daughter will never, ever win a gold metal in the Olympics.  Because if that happened, you’d be that mom who’s all weepy with mascara running down her face and her hair tied up in some strange pony tail with a USA flag sticking out of it.  The world would see you jumping and screaming “she’s miiiiiiiine!  That’s my baby girl!  Right there in the ugly women’s swimsuit that makes her look like a dude!”  Do you want to be that mom?  Do you?

(7) Wonder if anyone actually watches horse jumping.  The Queen might, but it’s England.  And her granddaughter is competing.

(8) Allow your 6-year-old daughter stay up until 10:30 pm so she can see synchronized men’s diving, answering fun questions like “why do they wear one half of a girl’s bikini?”  There are no good answers.  Mention something about aerodynamics and change the subject.

(9) See quite a lot of Ryan Lochte’s shaved chest, and finally,

(10)               Max out your tivo with events you don’t care about, just so you can fast forward through them and feel you are watching.  Because men’s team volleyball needs love too.

It’s the Olympics. The one time you will watch insane amounts of sports on television, feel proud to be an American, and cry at Proctor & Gamble commercials. Give these hard-working athletes their moment of fame, until one comes in 7th place.  Then you can critique their form before forgetting all about them because they won’t have endorsement deals and their face will fade from your memory.  Good effort, folks who spent ten years of their life pursuing one solitary goal only to have their dreams dashed on time-delayed television.

Toodles, ya’ll.  I have fencing to watch.  Go U.S.A!