A few weeks ago, we were watching the movie, Young Woman and the Sea, which is about the first girl to swim the English Channel. I wasn’t aware that people could swim channels, but I knew they could surf channels. When I surf channels, I like to surf the ESPN channel. Mostly because I like to stream the NBA. Get it? Steaming?

I learned a few things after watching that movie. One thing that I learned was that in 1924, they didn’t allow women to swim in public pools, so they had to start illegal underground swimming pools, similar to fight clubs, except they just swam. A little less interesting, but hey, when you want to do something illegally, you start an underground movement. I might start an illegal underground video game streaming club.

Eventually, some people tried to get her and a few other women to go to the Olympics, but their races were never official.

Other crazy things about the 1924 Olympics? There were only 27 events, mostly swimming and track, which the US ended up with a whopping 32 medals, 12 gold , 10 silver, and 10 bronze, while the next best competitor was Finland with 17 overall medals. Great Britan had 11, and France three, who just happened to be the host country. If you do a little math, you will realize that 1924 was exactly 100 years ago, and games were held in Paris, France exactly 100 years apart. Coincidence? I think not. They didn’t have breakdancing in the 1924 Paris, France games. They were clearly missing out.

In the Olympics there is a tendency for certain countries to continue to do well in the same events year after year. For instance, the US tends to do really well in swimming, track and field, basketball, and gymnastics. Usually, we do well in the same specific events, like the 4 X 100 in both swimming and track, men and women’s basketball. China seems to dominate in diving, shooting, weightlifting (weightlifting? Hopefully not by their divers…) and table tennis.

It might be that we just seem to have an endless supply of swimmers and track athletes that we just pluck out of the American soil like little weeds, or it could be that we just put all our Olympic money into specific sports that we care about. Either way, it seems like we just go from one generation (think Michael Phelps to Ryan Lochte to Caeleb Dressel) to the next.

The same thing happens with sports teams. For the San Antonio Spurs, it went from George Gervin to David Robinson, to Tim Duncan, to now Victor Wembanyama. In other words, they were just playing a grown-up version of musical chairs.

I played musical chairs a little bit when I was growing up, but only when I was forced to. If you think about it, musical chairs is just a Hunger Games type elimination exercise, disguised as a kid’s game. They lure you in by playing exciting music and while you are frolicking around chairs in a blissful utopia, a hammer is looming to nail you to the wall metaphorically, while other survive for one more round. It’s a sick safety manipulation only to kill off one more person every round. The prize is for one person to be the head of the Board of Directors, while everyone else gets fired.

Little did I know how much foreshadowing there would be when I was playing that seemingly innocuous game as a kid.

Corporations play this vicious game all the time in the workplace. They lure you into doing lots of work for them, by promising you a little salary, a chance at using their health plan, and even a few pizza fridays as incentive. Then when things go south, they start eliminating the chairs one by one, while playing you some music on your way out.

Relationships are just a constant game of musical chairs. My first crush in first grade was an exchange student from Holland and as you can imagine, we aren’t married. or something like that. I played muscial chairs with dozens of girls, who played musical chairs with dozens of other guys, and now it’s just millions of guys and girls playing musical chairs with each other.

I’ve been playing musical chairs with houses since I was young. When I was born, I lived in California, but the music started playing when I was six, so we moved chairs from California to New York. Then the music played again three years later, and so and so forth. Sometimes, the music played often and loudly. Other times, the music didn’t play for a while.

Airlines are especially good at playing musical chairs. They love to overbook seats on popular flights, promise everyone a seat, and then tell 8 people that they only have four seats. Then they play the music and watch everyone compete Hunger Games style by seeing who will budge first and go for the $100 voucher. They love watching people compete for a really skinny slice of a seat with no freedom of movement. I imagine they like to take bets on who will be the first to crack.

Musical chairs aren’t always a fun game. Especially when you are the only one around that doesn’t know that it is being played.

Sometime when my kids are being particularly prickly, I like to imagine telling them that we only have enough money to support one of them, and that they will have to play musical chairs in order to receive any help from us. I imagine they will play musical chairs with me when I get old and have to move in with them. Hopefully by then, I will have dementia and won’t remember them being mean to me.

While I’m having fun imagining these fun scenarios, let’s go ahead and look at some Bitter Friday Giftures that will remind of us how fun musical chairs are…

She’s going to swim the English Channel…

When she swam the English Channel…

In 1924, there were no women in the Olympics…

Also, there was no archery…

Countries tend to do well in the same events…

And this former…

China seems to dominate…

Eventually, athletes get old…

And then the music plays and the chairs switch…

But don’t worry…

They set you up with an old person’s version of the chair…

ARRRGGGHHHHHHHH

Bitter Musical Chair Ben