You're going to be.

And then. The The ceremonial ceremonial torch is lit. The rings are multicolored and five. The ill-conceived mascot has come

and gone. The vu-vusealous have been stripped from their owners and destroyed.

The host city's economy has been decimated and the semi-interested eyes of the world are upon us.

What else could it be? Welcome fellow contenders to the

Payne Olympics. No, not the infamous internet video of a man chopping his penis off that at least one of you

has never encountered and will now be sickly compelled to look up even though you know you have

nothing to gain by it.

I refer instead to that hallow tradition dating back to the ancient Romans who would congregate

naked in public bitch houses to vent about their problems.

Today, we honor them by measuring our struggles against one another's

to thereby determine whose depression is the most earned, and who, by contrast, should feel guilty for ever feeling down, which, it turns out

is everyone except the gold medalist. Tough break, but again it is the Payne Olympics.

It's been a long four years since last we convened on these fields of broken dreams,

in these melancholy stadia shaped like giant metal bird nests for some reason.

But now again, the time has come to test our medal in events like the long cry,

the 400 meter flee from loved one trying to help you,

the impossibly high hurdles,

the cripplingly lonely one-person relay race, the imbalance beam, uphill bob sled, and of course, free-form hopelessness.

Thanks to all of our sponsors, root canals, prostate exams,

chemotherapy, and aging.

And of course, a big thanks to Verna Herzog

...