I Want the Power of Olympic Judges

One thing that many people may not know about me is that when I was very little, I made an attempt at becoming an Olympic gymnast. Say what you will, but I could have been a star, all that was missing from the equation was the perseverance, the drive, and any athleticism whatsoever. Besides those few personality flaws, I was Shawn Johnson with a Y chromosome.

“Hank,” a then teammate and fellow Olympic hopeful said to me, “some people are meant to succeed in this tough, rigid game that combines both mental and physical toughness to produce a display of athletic grace that awes all that witness it, and others are simply meant to be spectators.” She had the best vocabulary of any 4-year-old I had ever met.

I felt a rift between her and I, then, an almost elitist hierarchy that she had created to tell me that she was simply better than me. I left the sport, vowing revenge on not just gymnasts, but all those athletes who can look at their chiseled abs in the mirror and say, “I could kill a bear with my bare hands.”

It is for this reason that I believe the only profession for me is that of an Olympic judge. The only word to describe that job is the word “metaphorically”.

For instance, if a diver separates his legs ever so much on a dive, the judge will go to the scorebook and metaphorically beat said athlete over the back of the head with a crowbar. If a group of synchronized divers are ever so slightly “out of sync”, a judge will metaphorically take a shotgun and shoot both divers in the kneecaps.

If a gymnast checks their balance on the beam, any judge will metaphorically tear the athletes heart out, put it on the table and stab it without mercy.

Here lies before me an occupation that allows overweight, out-of-shape, lazy individuals to watch incredible displays of athleticism and tear them apart out of what appears to be pure spite. My dream job? I do believe so.

Think if you could do that in your everyday life. When tipping your waiter at a restaurant, “Well, everything was good, except you wobbled a bit when you were carrying our tray out. Our family has talked it over, and we believe that to be about a $15 tip deduction. We hope your hard work has been worth it, we’ll eat here again in four years.”

So who says that dreams can’t come true? I will never work hard enough to make it to the Olympics as an athlete, but I can destroy the dreams of those that did. To me, that’s a dream worth living for.

See you in 2012, London, and so help you if any of you gymnasts don’t stick your dismount, I will fill a pillowcase full of bar soap and beat you to within inches of death. Metaphorically, anyway.