Every four years, summer has a reason to exist.
I'll say this simply: I love the Olympics. The tanned muscles on display. The human interest stories so filled with forced sentiment that you vomit through your tears. The "It's a Small World" parade of nations.
It's a beautiful thing.
Also, for those of a more macabre sense of humanity, a potentially horrific one. When you really consider the nature of these incredible feats of fitness, aren't you just sort of waiting for something truly awful to happen?
Rowing
where you just constantly wait for the muscular oarsmen to crack and tear the chirpy coxswain to chum
The horrors of gymnastics
that insane body cult that puts the viewer in a constant state of Final Destination 5
Weightlifting
where you watch men and women grab and lift bars designed to remind you of Debbie's fate in Nightmare On Elm Street Part 4
Rugby
Every swimming event
where you eagerly wait for the dolphin-like water sprites to finally transform into the human-eating fish people from that Buffy episode with Wentworth Miller
Speed walking
the sport that reminds you just how horrifying it is to be stranded in the middle of nowhere with nary a port-a-potty in site
Cycling
one of the rare events that seemed okay and like something you did every day as a suburban kid until THIS HAPPENS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES
Golf
where you're bored and fidgety so you just start dreaming about Cthulu-like creatures crashing the action to make you care
Table tennis
where large men attempt to volley a tiny prop often used to make zombie googly eyed monsters and then you think, wait, what if that really is the eyeball of an zombie googly eyed monster?
Track
where you watch human gazelles sprint at speeds you like to imagine you could summon if ever chased by a werewolf
Fencing
because I've watched enough Oz to know it's not that hard to replace a non-stabby knife with a real one
Archery
because EVERYTHING
Go for the gold. And be really, really careful.
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terrifying - and don't forget --one screw up in gymnnastics or something costs you the gold so you wind up 20 years later haunted by that one fuck up as you sweep out the Wal Mart at night, until some guy recruits you to train a rag tag band of outsiders to compete and with some horror you look in the mirror and realize YOU are Ben Stiller
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