Can swinging from side to side in a hammock be categorised as an Olympic sport already? The skill it takes to just lie there in a daze while coming in and out of a somewhat comatose and semi-vegetative state does not get the props it deserves in my opinion.
Before you know it days, no years, have gone by and your kids are all grown up and can barely pick you out from a line-up. But seriously, sometimes it feels like aeons have gone and one has not succumbed to any form of relaxation, especially in the hustle and bustle of the digital era that has become synonymous with modern-day life.
Does anybody even remember what a hammock is or are we too busy tweeting every five minutes?
Or does nobody really think about it cos we’re too busy adapting to yet another craze that has us hypnotised the world over? Strange, then, that the famed Olympics have not updated their categories accordingly and have instead left that responsibility up to people like me.
No worries, I’m all for it. I’ll even go as far as mixing some of the old with some of the new and who knows, maybe they’ll incorporate some of them in time for the 2020 Games in Tokyo. After all: it’s all fun and games, right?
Why catch a frisbee when you can catch a Pokémon? Well, that seems to be the consensus among half of the world’s population who’ve taken to the digital launch of Pokémon Go with much aplomb.
These people think nothing of zig-zagging across the street in peak-hour traffic with phone in hand furiously grasping at pockets of air completely oblivious of the commotion they’re causing around them.
They deserve medals. A Pokémon Go world championship series at the very least. If we can’t give them that, we seriously need to look into establishing rehab centres for them because I can’t be held responsible for what happens the next time someone dashes across my windscreen or knocks me over on a grocery store aisle in hot pursuit of a digital apparition.
Predictive text, voice-activated devices and digitised spell check and the like have ruined me and the rest of the adult population.
Before you know it, we won’t even be able to spell our own names and those who’ll still be able to will be regarded as an endangered species.
So although I refuse to admit that I went from being an ace speller during my school-going days to an adult who now can barely get through “writing” an entire article without some form of digital corrective assistance, I firmly believe those who can still spell without hindrance deserve to be marvelled at during the Olympics and that’s that.
Dabbing. Everybody does it and it’s not going anywhere any time soon. But what some don’t realise is that there’s an art-form to this head-in-inner-elbow type dance style and some are better at it than others.
I, for one, am obsessed with dabbing. I dab in my sleep even and quite expertly I might add so nothing grates me more than witnessing a bad dab. If I were to ever win Olympic gold, it would be because of my dab. So who do I speak to about this? I also want to stand on a podium and pretend to bite into my gold medal like it’s a potato chip.
Everybody knows that quidditch is the most iconic competitive sport of the literary era yet nearly two decades after we were first introduced to it via the first volume of the famed Harry Potter series, it has yet to feature in the Olympics. I don’t understand this. If javelin and fencing can be included in the Olympic Games, then so can quidditch.
And not this fake quidditch, mind you, that’s played on foot and not broomsticks like in some parts of the world – it’s disrespectful.
If we can make aeroplanes, helicopters and space shuttles then surely someone out there can figure out how to make flying broomsticks so this game can be played the way it was intended.
And last but certainly not least, there are people among us who have no social media profiles whatsoever. In 2016.
And I’m talking about real people here not holograms.
I know this because I’ve met some of them in person yet when I try and google them there’s no trace of them.
Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me but if not, then all I can say is: I don’t know how you do it, but I can’t think of anyone who’s more deserving of a medal than you.
* Nelly Shamase is a Joburg-based social commentator