Gymnastics, and Why it Bugs Me
It's everyone's favorite part of the summer Olympics. Well, except for the diving, which is so cool that even you want to watch it. Hey, I'd watch pretty much all of the events, if I only could watch it without seeing any more little tidbits on how the athletes all were car crashes a month ago, or are suffering from rare illnesses wherein they don't have any toes, or have just watched their parents die in a tragic stabbing, or how they got up every day at 5 am to practice ::yawn:: and worked...so...hard... (sorry, dozing off there).
Anyway! Yes, the gymnastics. Perhaps the most tragic of all the events. Those little Chinese girls who are stolen away from their parents at the age of 4 so they can do nothing but practice until they lose and are ceremonial executed. Those little Romanian girls who know that the only national product of Romania is little Romanian gymnasts. The Russians who always look like stone-cold meanies. And the corn-fed little American girls, who are probably all secretly hated at their high schools. Come on, imagine having one of those girls in your gym class. "I can touch my toes, Coach! I can touch my toes with my shoulders!"
Oh, gymnastics. How you disturb me. I mean, I have serious issues with it. Besides the aformentioned weirdness of the situation that breeds these little children, I have issues with the fact that men's gymnastics is for men, strong muscular fully developed reasonably-healthy-despite-a-few-broken-ankles men. Whereas women's gymnastics is for little girls. Little girls who have no breasts, whose ribcages stick out of their tiny costumes, whose hips probably never rotated, whose voices are abnormally high pitched due to the fact that they haven't gone through puberty yet, and probably never will.
Yet it's pretty cool to watch. Woo-hoo, see her just flip through the air! Ving ving ving! It's cool. Makes you want to try to touch your toes or something. I can touch my toes, as long as I'm holding a pen. Oh, chill, kidlings. I'm just kidding. I'm actually in okay shape, which I may discuss in some future musing.
Yes, they fly back and forth, and then they fall of the balance beam, or they make little hops on the landing (for each hop, they will have one finger removed when they return home). And of course I get teary-eyed. I get teary-eyed watching phone commercials. I'm just a wimp.
Anyway, so I'm getting a little weepy at the display, but then Emma calls and says, "Are you watching the gymnastics? Isn't it just the funniest thing you've ever seen?" Which is typical Emma. I say: "How can you say it's funny? They're all falling!" And she says, "Yes, that's what's so funny. They're the best in the whole world and they still fall." At that moment, one of the gymnasts falls over on a vault landing, and we see her tearfully retreating to her bench. "Don't cry, little Rat Faced Girl," says Emma. I start to see her point.
They're the best in the world, and they still suck. People are funny. I'm just going to hunker down and have a doughnut, for god's sake.