The Wonderful World of Sports

I think most people of my generation can remember the opening scene of ABC's Wonderful World of Sports. It usually came on just as the cartoons were ending. In my household, unlike most of my friends, Wonderful World of Sports meant to turn the TV off for the day. Unlike my friends, whose fathers would come down and watch sports on ABC after cartoons were over, my dad had very little interest in those sports. But, that is not the point of this post... really, it isn't! The point of the post is thus... this house is beginning to remind me of a bad Wonderful World of Sports "episode"/"event". My MIL gets home last night AFTER my FIL and husband left to pick up the in law's car from the dealership where it was being repaired. Nearly two hours later, about an hour after my FIL had returned, my husband appears. Hey, guys... we normally have dinner at 5:15ish or 5:30! It is now 7:00! Unfortunately, my FIL must have missed the baton hand off while my husband was gone because, as soon as husband had returned, we had to wait dinner on my FIL because HE LEFT again. It was at least 7:15 before we got a chance to eat our rather slurpy spaghetti.

The whole thing continued to remind me of WWofS as the evening wears on. Jane was trying to clean the house (her mother arrives tomorrow... YAY!). First roadblock in the way of her winning the HouseCleaning 200 was "The BROKEN dining room chair"! Yes, the new suite is BROKEN. They have had the darn thing for approximately 2 months. She finds a bolt on the floor and the chair NEAR falling apart. This causes her to lose concentration and go into a mini venting session over the chair. I attempt to calm my cleaning team mate... but no avail. I think the Wenzel Women's Cleaning team is again destined to lose the HouseCleaning 200! Just when I think she is calm, she finds her next stumbling block. But, what is it??? It looks like a vomited piece of... WHAT the heck is that? I get called in as judge because it is suspected it came from my cat. Ummmmm.... no way in hades did something THAT large come from a cat. It is solid, and yellow, and vomity. It looks like a really large pepper... like the ones PapaJohn's sends with their pizza. Being the mother figure, Jane, like my mother would do, tackles this object head on... sniffs it, pokes at it, tries to cut it open. She comes to the conclusion it looks like a really large apricot. Looking at the dog, we figure someone (not naming names *coughFILcough*) has fed the dog apricots. Ok, problem solved, at least for now. Let's vacuum! Jane then begins the vac-ing portion of the Cleaning 200 while I self-centerly continue to look at the vomit and complain that the cat gets blamed for all vomit now-a-days. So, I become disqualified from the Wenzel Women's team. Not that I care... the lack of food has caused me to feel like I'm going to faint. Where are those team medics when I need them???

Sometime between feeling faint and Jane power vac-ing, FIL arrives home from wherever he went to go to the store (must have been a neighboring country because he was gone A LONG TIME for just a gallon of milk). We then sit down to eat... in which FIL, my husband, and I all are disqualified from the spaghetti neatness event when we all slop sauce and spaghetti water all over our clothing. Jane comes out the winner in that event, although she doesn't seem to appreciate this fact... she wants a shower and to get pj's on. To do this, however, she has to finish the last leg of vac-ing! So, as a last minute substitute for dishwasher, I step in to clean up the kitchen so she can vac! I pull my loyal team member husband to help. He pouts and we lose valuable time arguing over who is going to wash and who is going to dry (or why he has to help in the first place). The gold star is denied the team because we did not use our time wisely and failed to get out of the way before the Tennis Ball Kicking team took the field after dinner.

Just when I am thinking that the HouseCleaning 200 needs to occur as often as the Olympics, magically clean teammate Jane appears. She settles in for the last event of the evening. Relaxing in front of the TV because the work (HAHAHAHA) is done. Unfortunately, this event is quickly canceled in favor of a minor debate on where the screw went for the broken chair (in which every member of the house is interrogated over this missing object. Once again, the cat is blamed.) and a lively disagreement over word usage. At this point, I give up acting like a human being, grab a bowl of popcorn, and decide this may be more interesting to watch than participate in. Jane quickly loses interest in the CSI on the TV and begins to snooze, as is her right. She has worked all day and participated in a hugely unpopular competition in which she had NO HELP and lots of stumbling blocks to overcome. I decide that Jane watching is not a good sport and decide to watch House episodes on my laptop. FIL continues to grumble and grouse about the women of the household. And, my favorite team member, my husband, is noticeably absent... hiding in the storage room in the basement. He says he was studying for a final exam ... but I don't believe him. He was just hiding from the shame of defeat. Or was that hiding from conflict.

And here we hear Jim McKay say, "Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition… this is ABC's Wide World of Sports!" *ROLL CREDITS*