Written in the early April of 2018

While out at my mother and sister’s and aunt’s place on Easter, during the dog parent get together, when the full-breasted women of the two generations under my mother reveled in dog parenting rather than human parenting—and I promised under my breath to breed a brood on some white Filipino if I begin making four figures a month instead of three—I did what retired coots have done since mankind was young—forgot my sorrow in beer, the slave drink that made my grandfathers’ bondage bearable for many millennia.

Enjoying the music on the tube was dashed by my brother-in-law’s father suggesting sports, which was calculated to kill conversation. In the mood for baseball, I was surprised to see winter Olympics programing and thrilled to see that curling, my best lift when I lifted weights as a teen and could curl 120 pounds at 143 was now an Olympic sport.

Then I saw this autistic shoe skater gently pushing a machined granite disk down a giant ice shuffleboard. The progress of the disc is effected by his two slaves who frantically smooth the ice in front of the disc to effect its progress. I used to love playing shuffleboard, which is such a good bar game because it requires the acting player to calculate the course of the puck and it’s acceleration and deceleration before and during release, serving the salient lesson and inculcating the important understanding that our efforts to interact with the world, natural, human and inhuman, best take into account what is known of these things and that counting on second guessing is a trait of fools.

I blurted, “This makes golf look like a sport! This is an exercise in second guessing, an editorialized effort at polishing a 40-pound turd of an effort!”

The gathered men rallied to the cause of the ancient and noble sport of curling, which one said was Greek. I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. This has got to be some Norse slave sport where the master’s slides the stone and his thralls make it hit home or they get sacrificed to the Norns!”

The men continued to defend the abomination and I pointed out the Korean team and said, “This would rise to the level of sport if the squeegee guys fought over the right to aid their chief’s cast. Look at those guys go—you know they probably have Olympic recruiters climbing out onto those hanging scaffolds and enlisting window washers in Singapore.”

Sick of my constant deriding of non-combat sports the men shook their head, and a soft white light lit up behind the milky eyes of young Brad’s buxom wench and she seemed to see the world of men with a new clarity, and said, “This is really gay. The next thing you know memes will become an Olympic event.”

I spread my arms in recognition that the approval of this likely lass had settled the day, “That’s right, young lady, Western Civilization is down for the count.”