The Domestic Olympics

Let the Fun and Games Begin!

The long-awaited Summer Olympic Games in London have just begun. Everybody knows that. But what everybody doesn't know is that a far more exciting Olympic competition has just recently taken place. I'm referring, of course, to the Domestic Olympic Games, which tend to go virtually unnoticed by the media. That's a shame. The networks don't know what they're missing by not sending camera crews to cover these games.

I was lucky enough to attend the Domestic Olympics this year, and even managed to get tickets to some of the finals. I thought you might like to hear about the events you missed.

To start off with, Brenda Cherry, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, took a gold medal in Weightlifting for single-handedly moving her refrigerator-freezer to mop up the contents of a full gallon of chocolate milk spilled by her ten-year-old son, Mitchell. The Weightlifting silver went to Nancy Flournoy, who impressed the judges by rearranging the furniture in her den all by herself, including an upright piano. A disappointed Mrs. Flournoy said, "If only my piano had been a baby grand, the gold medal would be around my neck today!”

Next, Sweetwater, Texas housewife, Gwen Berger, took top honors for Synchronized Swimming Lessons. Brenda, undaunted by the unexpected closing of her local YMCA pool due to filter malfunction, managed to synchronize the schedules of private swimming lessons for each of her five children, in five different locations!

A new record was set in the Hammer Throw this year. Tiny little Yvonne Gruber hurled a ball-peen hammer more than nineteen feet, after smashing her left thumb four times trying to assemble metal shelving units for her pantry. (She did not receive a medal, however, because her language reflected poor sportsmanship.)

Rhonda Bosco, Wrestling gold medalist, gave the performance of her life by wrestling a sleeper sofa up a spiral staircase into the playroom. Her husband, Richard, was on the sidelines cheering her on with such supportive remarks as, "I'm telling you, Baby, it's not going to fit”, and "If you throw your back out, don't come whining to me.”

The gold medal for Fencing went to Twila McNutt, of Durham, North Carolina. Twila, a mother of two-year-old twins, displayed her remarkable speed and dexterity at erecting toddler fences across an impressive number of off-limit doorways and dangerous stairwells.

Adelle Duckett, former Dayton, Ohio resident, earned the Boxing title with little competition. It took Adelle only three days to box up the entire contents of her nine-room home when her husband received a last-minute transfer to Phoenix, Arizona. She requested that the medal be forwarded to her new address.

In one of the most dramatic moments of the Domestic Olympics, Libby Wald set a new world record in Hurdles. Mrs. Wald cleared a four-foot high boxwood shrub with inches to spare, successfully catching her toddling daughter, Meagan, at the edge of the next-door-neighbor's swimming pool!

Cycling was the event of choice for Dotty Atterbury, who won a gold medal for riding her stationary bike more than three hundred miles in preparation for her upcoming twentieth High School Reunion. Dotty made it clear that she would definitely not return for next year's competition.

Few Relay teams will ever measure up to the level of skill displayed by this year's gold medalists, Bonnie and Mike Schutt. Car trouble left them with only one car, yet the Schutts somehow transported their four children to three soccer games, two birthday parties and a Girl Scout car wash on a single Saturday. Despite triple-digit temperatures that day, Bonnie even delivered Snow Cones to the winning soccer players.

Finally, the Steeplechase. This little-known event really proved to be the Cinderella star of the Domestic Olympics, thanks entirely to an unknown, June Skidmore, mother of six, who lives in Boise, Idaho. This remarkable woman managed to locate and enroll her children in every single church Vacation Bible School in the city, and didn't leave one single week unfilled. Within minutes of the medal ceremony, Mrs. Skidmore was offered an unbelievable amount of money to publish her sources. Even though it meant giving up her amateur status, thereby disqualifying her from future Olympic competitions, she took the money. Her book is scheduled for release by next Spring, and promises to be a runaway bestseller!

By the way, I don't want to leave the impression that the Domestic Olympic Games are new on the scene, because they're not. It's a little known fact that even before ancient Olympiad, Coroebus won the first foot race in 776 B.C., his mother, Agrippina, discovered a ten pound petrified meatloaf in the bottom of one of her Grecian urns, and launched it thirty-three feet into the garbage dump behind the Parthenon, thus setting a Shot Put record that would stand for more than six centuries.

Now that woman deserves to be on a box of Wheaties!