The 1999 Couch Potato Olympics

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THE 1999 COUCH POTATO OLYMPICS
OFFICIAL RESULTS
Labor Day Weekend · September 4–6, 1999 · Apartment 14, Fresno, California

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!! · WORLD RECORD IN THE CHANNEL-SURFING MARATHON · CAFFEINE SCANDAL ROCKS SYNCHRONIZED NAPPING · FRESNO 2000!!!

What's up. I'm Ricky Page, 19, a full-time student at the community college here in Fresno and the official Class Clown of the Class of 1998 (look it up, it's in the yearbook, page 112, I'm wearing a lampshade). Over Labor Day weekend, me, my two roommates and my kid brother held the first ever Couch Potato Olympics in our living room. Four athletes. Five events. Three days. One couch.

Some people spent Labor Day at the lake. Some people had barbecues. We did not do any of that. We were in training.

THE OPENING CEREMONY
Saturday, September 4, 1999, 7:00 p.m.

The Parade of Athletes came out of the hallway one at a time, from the bathroom end, while everybody hummed the SportsCenter music. Each athlete carried the flag of his bedroom (a pillowcase on a broom handle). My brother Dustin's flag was a beach towel because he was staying over and didn't have a bedroom, so he represented the Nation of the Hall Closet.

Then came the Lighting of the Torch. Since we're not allowed to have candles in the apartment (lease, page 3), the torch was a bag of microwave popcorn. Kenny carried it from the kitchen to the microwave, which is about four steps, very slowly, like it was a big deal, and pushed the POPCORN button. Everybody stood in silence for three minutes and ten seconds. When the popping slowed down to two seconds between pops, the Games were declared OPEN. The torch was eaten.

Then we took The Athletes' Oath, each with one hand on the TV Guide:

"I WILL NOT GET UP."
(except for the Fridge Dash, which is the whole point,
and the bathroom, which is allowed during commercials)

Then we watched Cops.

THE EVENTS

1. THE REMOTE CONTROL RELAY
Sunday, September 5, 1999, 10:00 a.m. (that's early for us)

Two teams of two, on opposite ends of the couch. You have to pass the remote down the line and back, four times, without anybody getting up or sitting up. Feet are allowed. Dropping the remote between the cushions is a five-second penalty, plus however long it takes to find it. Dean and Kenny dropped it in the second leg and found it, plus 85 cents and a Lego guy that belongs to Dustin from Easter.

GOLD	Team Couch (Ricky and Dustin), 41 seconds
SILVER	Team Recliner (Kenny and Dean), 1 minute 13 seconds, including the cushion search
BRONZE	The remote itself, for surviving

2. THE COMMERCIAL BREAK FRIDGE DASH
Sunday, September 5, 1999, afternoon, during a baseball game

When a commercial break starts, the athlete leaves the couch, runs to the fridge (23 feet, we measured with a shoelace), gets a can of soda, and gets back to the couch before the game comes back on. Timed with the stopwatch on Kenny's watch. If the game comes back before you sit down, you are disqualified and you have to bring everybody else a soda too.

GOLD	Kenny, 7.9 seconds. Kenny works at a pizza place and is used to moving fast with drinks.
SILVER	Dustin, 9.2 seconds. He would have won but he stopped to get a cheese stick too.
BRONZE	Ricky, 11.0 seconds. I slipped on the kitchen tile in my socks. I would like it on the record that the tile was wet.
DNF	Dean. Opened the fridge, found the leftover lasagna, and was not seen again for the rest of the inning.

3. THE CHANNEL-SURFING MARATHON
Sunday, September 5, 1999, 8:00 p.m.

The big one. We have 61 cable channels. The athlete starts on channel 2 and has to go through every single channel, all 61, in order, and back to channel 2, using only the up button. The rule is you can't stay on any channel longer than three seconds, and you have to say out loud what's on (like "cooking show," "guy selling knives," "C-SPAN," "Spanish soap opera," "the weather," "golf," "a different guy selling knives"). If you stop to actually watch something, the clock keeps running and the crowd boos.

GOLD	Dean, 2 minutes 47 seconds. WORLD RECORD. (It's also the only record, but still.) Dean said "infomercial" 9 times.
SILVER	Ricky, 4 minutes 30 seconds. I stopped on a Simpsons rerun for a whole scene. You would have stopped too.
BRONZE	Dustin, 6 minutes 2 seconds. He stopped on Cartoon Network and refused to keep going until the cartoon was over. He is twelve. We should have seen it coming.
4th	Kenny, 6 minutes 40 seconds. Fell asleep on the Weather Channel. Said he was "pacing himself."

After the marathon we left the Labor Day telethon on all night and watched the tote board go up. Around midnight Dean got up and called in and pledged ten dollars, which was the only time anybody got up voluntarily all weekend. We voted that it was for a good cause and didn't count against him.

4. FREESTYLE SNACK STACKING
Monday, September 6, 1999, noon

Any snack, any style, on the coffee table. Tallest tower that stands for ten seconds wins. Judged by the downstairs neighbor, who came up to complain about the noise and stayed to judge.

GOLD	Dustin, 27 chocolate sandwich cookies, straight up. Then he ate the tower, which the judge allowed.
SILVER	Kenny, a pyramid of tortilla chips held together with bean dip. Points for engineering, minus points for structural bean dip.
BRONZE	Ricky, cheese puffs. They're light, but they're not flat. Fell over at 9 seconds, and that's bronze, because Dean's fell over at 4.
4th	Dean, saltine crackers, which is a boring snack and he knows it.

5. SYNCHRONIZED NAPPING (FINAL)
Monday, September 6, 1999, 2:00 p.m.

Pairs. You lie down on the couch (one each end) or the floor (the floor is harder, and you get a degree-of-difficulty bonus) and try to fall asleep at the same time. Judges score technical merit (how fast you fall asleep and how long you stay that way) and artistic impression (snoring in rhythm, matching positions, drool). The judge was Dustin, until he was forced to compete. See The Scandal.

GOLD	Ricky and Kenny. Both asleep within six minutes. Snored in rhythm for almost a full minute. Kenny's arm fell off the couch at the exact same time as mine. The judges were in tears.
SILVER	Dustin and Tater (Kenny's cat), after Dean was disqualified. Tater has been training for this her whole life.
BRONZE	Not awarded.
DQ	Dean. Caffeine.

THE MEDAL TABLE

ATHLETE	G	S	B	Total
Dustin	2	2	1	5
Ricky	2	1	2	5
Kenny	2	2	0	4
Dean	1	1	0	2
Tater (cat)	0	1	0	1
The remote	0	0	1	1

OVERALL CHAMPION: DUSTIN, on silvers. My little brother, who is twelve, who was only here because Mom had to work the weekend, is the Couch Potato Champion of the World. I have trained for this since I was born. I am a disgrace to my family. Mom is very proud of him and told everyone at her work.

The medals were the gold, silver and bronze foil from a bag of chocolate coins, taped to shoelaces. Dustin wore his to school on Tuesday.

THE CAFFEINE SCANDAL

At 1:15 p.m. on Monday, forty-five minutes before the Synchronized Napping final, Dean was seen in the kitchen by two witnesses (me and the cat) drinking his fourth can of soda since lunch.

Rule 6 of the Couch Potato Olympic Charter (which I wrote on the back of a pizza box on Saturday) clearly says: No caffeine within two hours of a napping event.

Dean lay down for the final and his eyes would not close. After twenty minutes he was still wide awake, staring at the ceiling, tapping his foot, and he started talking about how he was going to reorganize the kitchen cabinets. His partner, Dustin, was so distracted he couldn't fall asleep either. The judges (me, from the other end of the couch, with one eye open) stopped the event and Dean tested positive for being awake.

Dean appealed. He said the sodas were "for hydration" and that one of them was root beer, which doesn't count. The Olympic Committee (me) checked the cans in the recycling and found that only one of the four was root beer. Appeal denied. Dean was disqualified from the napping final and has been banned from all future napping events until he apologizes to the cat.

Dean says this whole thing was a "witch hunt." Dean also reorganized the kitchen cabinets that night, so I don't know what he's complaining about. They look great.

THE CLOSING CEREMONY
Monday, September 6, 1999, evening

Medals were handed out from the couch, by reaching. The Olympic popcorn bag was folded up and retired. Then Mom came to pick up Dustin, and she looked at the apartment, and she looked at us, and she said, "I don't want to know." The Games were declared CLOSED.

FRESNO 2000!

The real Olympics are in Sydney, Australia, next September. We think the Committee made a mistake, and Apartment 14 is officially bidding to hold the 2000 Couch Potato Olympics instead. Here's how we stack up:

SYDNEY	FRESNO (Apartment 14)
A world-famous harbor	A canal down the street and a pool with no diving board
A world-famous opera house	A world-famous couch (famous to us)
A brand-new Olympic stadium	A brand-new beanbag (Kenny's, from his birthday)
Almost a whole day ahead of us, so their Games are half over before we wake up	We are never ahead of anything
Kangaroos	Tater
Has to fly everybody in	Everybody already lives here

We are confident. Dean says we should also bid for the Winter Games, since we had frost one night in January.

MEET THE ATHLETES >>

You are spectator number

since September 7, 1999. No refunds.

Want to hold your own Couch Potato Olympics? Want to report a rules violation? Want to challenge Dean's world record?
[email protected]

Last updated Saturday, September 18, 1999