On the Olympics and Wedgies

I was sitting in bed the other night and thought I would do some blogging. (Yes, you caught me, not all of my blogs are written on the toilet. The first stall is where I usually gather my thoughts and think about new subject matter.) In the middle of working on a piece about my cat, I looked up to see what was on the television. My wife had put it on NBC but was on her Kindle Fire (Product placement! Where's my money? Cha-ching!) and not paying a lot of attention to what was on.

When it comes to television I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame. (In this case, an HD flame.) And it doesn't matter what is on or where I am, I will start watching. My wife has learned that if we go out to a restaurant like Applebees, There's No Place Like The Neighborhood (cha-ching!), she needs to keep my back to the TV. (It could be a Women's Blind Midget Ping-Pong Tournament and I would watch it. Actually, I would probably watch that anyway!)  She left the TV on the Olympic trials. Women's gymnastics was on and I began to watch.

The athletes were amazing! The acrobatic feats they were pulling off were awe inspiring, yet, as you have come to expect from me, that was not the first thing that caught my attention. These young women were jumping, leaping, flipping, tumbling and all I could see were the wedgies they were sporting. When I say their wedgies caught my attention, I do not mean this in any sort of sexual way. These girls are all still in their teens and if I was in anyway aroused, I would not be blogging about it. I would be seeking some therapy. All I could think about was how uncomfortable those wedgies looked.

A wedgie is not a very comfortable thing and something most people try to avoid whenever possible. I was not subjected to any of these as a child, nor did I give any to anyone, as I feel this falls into the cruel and unusual department. The fact that the sport requires you to perform it with the uniform wedged in your ass crack is probably one of the main reasons I never became a female Olympic gymnast. (Well, maybe that, but the penis and the years and years of hard, physical training had something to do with it as well.)

I missed most of the earlier events but started with a little bit of the balance beam and the uneven bars. On a bit of a side note, why is it that I instantly become an expert on whatever event I am watching? As the gymnasts are on the balance beam I find myself saying stuff like, "Oh she needs to focus. That wobble is going to cost her some points. That was just sloppy. You call that a landing?" Who am I? I don't watch gymnastics, ever, and have no idea how they even score these events. Not to mention the fact that I couldn't do what they were doing on the ground, whereas they are doing it 4 feet off the ground on a 4 inch wide beam (Thanks Wikipedia, yet again.) yet here I sit, critiquing their performances, like I have been doing it my whole life.

I did the same things when watching the floor exercises. Forget the running, doing thirty jumps and flips in the air and landing perfectly within the appointed boundaries. I was focusing on the non-tumbling parts of their routines. Yet again, I had transformed into the fourth or fifth judge (too lazy to look up how many judges there are for this event). "That choreography stinks. She looks like she is trying to do the robot. Where is the grace? Where is the fluid motion?" I was turning into Bruno Tonioli from Dancing With the Stars. This, however, is gymnastics, not ballroom dancing. I am sure the gymnasts get points for the "dancing" part, but I bet those flips and tumbles are the biggest part of their scores. Besides, have you ever seen me dance? Holy crap! I'm surprised people don't try to put wallets in my mouth. And I can barely do a cartwheel. Where do I have the chutzpah to judge anyone on this event. Not only are these girls doing incredible routines, but they are doing them with their uniforms riding high and barefoot. They aren't even wearing a nice pair of Sketchers or Nikes (cha-ching, cha-ching).

Yet despite my attempts to be a judge or an assistant coach from the other side of the television screen, it was still the wedgies that concerned me the most. These athletes must either have special suits or the TV station must have perfected the art of switching cameras, because I seldom see them digging their suits out from between their butt cheeks after a routine. Why are the outfits so tight? Does it help with their routines? I get swimming uniforms being skin tight as every tenth of a second counts but does it really matter in gymnastics? I could see not wearing anything too long or loose. I mean, if they were wearing a full length gown they could easily step on it and end up doing a face plant in the middle of their tumbling run. Do they have to be THAT clingy though? Can't they design a leotard that comes down a bit further like bicycle shorts or something? I am just thinking about the comfort of these poor young women.

I give all the credit in the world to any Olympic athletes. So much of their lives have to be set aside for training and such. It seems hard to imagine that these "kids" have much of a life, especially the female gymnasts, being as young as they are. It is not just the Olympics either, these athletes also compete in a variety of competitions all over the world. Do they ever get to sit back with a nice refreshing Pepsi (cha-ching!) and catch a movie like Warner Brothers Pictures new summer blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises, starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman (big cha-ching!)?

And on a side, side note with the very nature of this sport, gymnastics does not seem very useful beyond the competition circuit. I mean, you aren't going to get a call from a friend saying, "Hey! I  just set up the balance beam in the garage. Grab your skin tight leotards and we'll do some tumblin'. Yeah and bring a shoe horn, I feel some serious wedgies coming on." At least the Olympic ice skaters have the Ice Capades and Disney on Ice to fall back on. What do gymnast have? Cirque du Soleil? But then again, maybe this is all just training for those who aspire to where thongs when they grow up.

The last thing I wanted to say is that I am sure this will not be the last post you get from me about the Olympics, so stay tuned. Good luck to all the athletes and let's hear it for the red, white and blue (which should cover a large percentage of the worlds flags)! Now I think I will head over to Burger King and try their new Carolina BBQ WHOPPER®, just one of the items on their new summer BBQ menu. The Carolina BBQ WHOPPER® Sandwich is a ¼ lb of savory flame-broiled beef, topped with naturally smoked thick-cut bacon, pepper jack cheese, freshly cut iceberg lettuce, red onions and ripe tomatoes, smothered with a sweet southern sauce and the tang of Carolina BBQ sauce, all on a warm, toasted sesame seed bun. Uuuuum I'm lovin' it. Ooops wait wrong one. Do I still get the cha-ching?