Curling: A True Man's Sport

When you work from home, writing and operating e-commerce Web sites like I do, one day seems pretty much the same as another. There’s never really a day off and I not only don’t know what date it is, I frequently couldn’t even tell you the day of the week.

In a nutshell, the day to day grind leaves me in a bit of a rut and I need to find things to spice up my days. To break things up, I look for small things that will add a little change of pace—a bit of excitement to my otherwise monotonous routine.

Today is a day I have marked on my calendar as the penultimate routine buster. It is a day that comes around only once every four years. You see, my favorite event at the Winter Olympics begins today and I couldn’t be more excited. Today is the first day of the curling competition!

It sounds crazy, I know! When there are adrenaline-inducing events like the giant slalom, speed skating relays, or the now, death-defying luge, how in the world could I possibly get so worked up about a “sport” that involves one guy pushing an odd-looking orb down the ice while another scratches the ice’s surface with a strange brush-like thing, hoping to influence its path? Anyone asking such a ludicrous question has clearly never been married!

After having to suffer through more than my share of made for TV men-bashing shows on Lifetime—Television for Women, the inane cat fights on America’s Top Model, and, say it isn’t so, the pitiful plodding of the likes of Jerry Springer on Dancing with the Stars, it is my time to exact revenge.

When the Olympics are on, the rule of the house is that the TV stays on the Olympics; we need to support our country, after all!

A small, evil smile forms on my face when curling is announced as the next event. I can almost hear the shrill cry now. “Noooooo,” my wife will scream, “we are not watching that!”

I have done my preparation, though. I have made sure that the TV remote is securely implanted in my hand and have done one other incredibly evil deed—I have made sure that my wife's car keys have been inconveniently “misplaced.” A dash to the safety of the mall wouldn’t do at a time like this. No, this is my time; four years of wrongs must be corrected!

“You have to watch this honey,” I will say, “these guys are amazing!"

The look of exasperation, the way my wife’s eyes roll so far back into her head that I wonder if they can possibly return to their proper place, is priceless!

I will feign excitement for every properly pushed disk. I’ll jump, I’ll scream, I’ll throw things at the television. "Surely, this year’s performance will be deserving of an Oscar," I'll tell myself.

And, the best part is, this is only day one; curling will be televised for the next 13 days! You’ll have to do some channel surfing, though. This is why having a firm grip on the TV remote is so important. Check your local listings; curling is so popular, that multiple networks televise it. You can find it televised on USA, CNBC, and MSNBC. (It is inexplicably not covered on the mother-ship, NBC, for some reason.)

Watching curling is not for the faint-hearted—it’s not for those that enjoy sitting in a chair at the mall, telling their wife or girlfriend that she looks great in everything she tries on. No, curling is a true man’s sport; watching it takes steady resolve. Please don’t think yourselves malevolent, gentlemen; payback is a contestant on The Bachelor, after all!