the truth about sports

(time:  yesterday afternoon.  place:  bedroom)

[scripty]
PAMIE
Well, when do we have to get back from lunch?

ERIC
What do you mean?

PAMIE
So you can watch the game.

ERIC
What game?

PAMIE
You said you wanted to watch basketball today, I was just wondering when we had to be back.

ERIC
Oh.  It doesn’t matter.

PAMIE
What?

ERIC
There’s basketball on all day.  I can catch any game.

PAMIE
Huh?

ERIC
Besides, it’s only the last half that’s interesting… let’s see… it’s a Magic game.. yeah, whatever.  We’ve got all day.

PAMIE
Am I dreaming?
[/scripty]

I just wanted it documented.  Because usually on this site I try and expose what women really want and why they are so weird, but in this case, I saw further into the male mind than I think I was supposed to.  I think, perhaps, Eric was weak and still sort of sleepy, because then he said this:

[scripty]
ERIC
It’s just basketball.
[/scripty]

It’s just basketball.  When have you ever heard someone say that?  I thought perhaps birthday week had been extended into birthday month or something…  Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to ruin it.

Now, Eric doesn’t watch that much sports anyway.  I’ve never really complained about the amount of sports in the house.  But to hear him say those words, I felt that perhaps he could get kicked out of the guy club if that got around… so I’m trusting you here by telling you…

What he does watch that drives me nuts is Formula One racing.  Those cars are so whiny.  Drives me nuts.  Weeoooooooo.  Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooo.  Weeeeeeeoooooooo.   “Oh, that’s the fifteenth lap for Deveraux, only two hundred more to go, and this one coming up could prove to be the most crucial.”

Eric and I have often discussed what makes a sport a sport.  He seems to think that any competition that has a finish line is a real sport.  He thinks that sports that require judges are not exactly sports.  I think that car racing is hardly a sport at all, since it’s about the engineering of the car.

Now, before you write in, Eric has already spent hours explaining how hard it is to drive these cars– how skilled you have to be and how trained… but if I said that horse racing is a sport by those definitions he would say that it wasn’t, and that it was about the horse, since the horse is alive.

At this point, I’m not trying to take sides or try to win your support.  I’m only explaining the sport debates that happen during Sunday afternoons.

Here is a list of “sports” that didn’t make Eric’s cut of “real sports:”

 

Ice Skating
Ice Dancing
Synchronized Swimming
Boxing
Gymnastics
Curling
just about every single Olympic Event
Bowling

 

Again, because they are judged.  He doesn’t watch the Olympics, can you believe that?

I don’t consider the following “sports”:

 

Motorcycle Racing
Nascar Racing
Formula One Racing
Skeet Shooting
Professional Wrestling
Golf
The World’s Strongest Man
Bowling
 

He can’t stand to watch gymnastics, I can’t stand to watch interviews of people who once changed a tire for Schumacher.  But we do pretty much agree that any sport that you can do while drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette probably isn’t a “sport,” per se.

And we both agree we’ll miss The Great One.