The fine performance by skater Nancy Kerrigan has saved me a considerable sum in psychiatric fees.
Only two days ago, I was preparing to schedule a series of sessions with a shrink to help relieve me of a painful sense of shame, guilt and embarrassment.
Actually, these dark feelings came on rather suddenly. I was feeling rather chipper until I happened to glance at a sports column in the tiny screechy newspaper.
The column solemnly began: “A proud country, America is not today.”
Feeling alarmed, I read on, and it got worse.
“They’re laughing at us, you know. And they should. Only in America could a genteel sport degenerate into a sick sort of boxing sleaze.”
After rehashing the Kerrigan-Harding unpleasantness, the sports columnist issued this poignant plea to Kerrigan:
“She is integrity and honor. She can clean the muck off our nation’s face. Nancy Kerrigan, save us from ourselves.”
Boy, did that put me into a funk. I immediately phoned a psychiatrist and asked for an appointment.
“I don’t know if I can squeeze you in,” he said. “My waiting room is filled, and there are people lined up halfway around the block.”
I explained that mine was an emergency case. “I have lost my pride as an American; I believe the world is laughing at us, and I think I have muck on my face and only Nancy Kerrigan can get rid of the muck.”
“Ah, yes,” the shrink said. “That’s what everyone else is suffering from. It has broken out all over the country and has taken on almost epidemic proportions. I can hear people in my waiting room crying out: `Nancy, get rid of the muck, the muck, oh, the terrible muck.’ “
That’s terrible.
“Yes, I have never seen anything like it. Others are just sitting in a fetal position, mumbling: `I am an American and I have no pride. Nancy, give me back my pride. Save us from ourselves.’ “
That’s exactly how I feel, except a fetal position hurts my back, so I’m just slouching.
“I will book you for tomorrow afternoon,” the shrink said. “Now I must go. Someone is using a fire extinguisher to get rid of the muck on his face.”
To pass the gloomy time, I turned on my TV. And there was a special news report on how the world was laughing at America.
They interviewed a North Korean official, who laughed with great glee and said: “Ha-ha, you imperialist pigs. You pick on us for trying to build The Bomb. But you let Tonya skate after Nancy get hit on knee. Ha-ha. Now joke on you.”
Then they switched to a correspondent in Russia, who said, “The sound of laughter is ear-splitting. Boris, what are you laughing about?” Boris came on camera and said: “Hoo-hoo, big shots, with your fancy cars and TV and cheap vodka. So maybe our economy is mess; maybe you catch our spy in your CIA and now maybe you don’t send us so much money; maybe we got civil wars ready to break out all over this part of world. Maybe we got crazy people run our government. But, yo-ho-ho, we don’t have no skaters get hit on leg by some goofus. We laugh on you, ho-ho.”
Then the network cut to Bosnia and a scene showing hundreds of people standing in rubble, but doubled up with laughter.
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One of them said: “Oh boy, and we thought we had problems here with Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Muslims, Christians, everybody shoot, boom, boom, bombs, guns. But we don’t know what trouble is. Big trouble is woman get hit on leg with bat. Lucky me. My wife only get hit in head with bomb. Ha, ha. You Americans. You funny. Especially with muck on face.”
They cut to a meeting at the United Nations just in time to show a delegate from Italy giggling as he put a whoopie cushion on the chair of our representative, while the entire chamber howled with glee.
I couldn’t watch any more. So I fled to my favorite bar, where I saw Slats Grobnik, tears dripping down his long beak into his beer.
“Yeah, me, too,” he said. “I always been proud to be an American. We ain’t perfect. But, hey, we saved the world from Hitler and Tojo. It took awhile and a lot of lives, but we knocked out big-time communism. We’ve given a lot of money to countries that are down-and-out. We go into Somalia to help out. We invent most of the medicine that keeps people alive all over the world. And look at all the immigrants who come here and find a good life. So I was always proud of that.
“Now I ain’t got no pride, and the world is laughing at us, and I got muck all over my face. All because of Tonya and that Gillooly crew. Jeez, I hope history don’t judge America too harshly. I think I’m going to go kill myself.”
But at that moment, Tonya came on TV and she skated poorly. Our spirits rose a bit. And before long, Nancy came on and skated beautifully.
And the national crisis of spirit and pride had passed.
So I phoned the shrink and canceled my appointment.
“Yes, everyone else has too. They all feel fine now.”
Great, but how can we avoid this kind of crisis in the future?
“Simple enough,” the shrink said. “You put all sports columnists on Prozac.”