Once every four years, I’m in the mood to watch a little discus, a little javelin throw, some long jump, some pole vault, and some hammer throw and shot put. These are not events you see every day, and don’t really want to. Every three years would be too much; every five years, too little. Four years seems just about the right interval at which to spend an afternoon watching a bunch of shot putters do their thing and wondering where they get the motivation to spend so much time practicing.

It’s not as if these athletes can turn pro, even if they win the gold medal. The kids on “Jersey Shore” will make more money in a week by being spoiled brats than most Olympic champions will make in a lifetime. A “real” housewife makes more getting her nails done.

Spoiler alert: I don’t know who actually won the gold medal in any of the above-mentioned sports, because if they were on TV, I missed them. Every single time I turned on NBC, the network was showing women’s beach volleyball. Endless hours of it. Nine gazillion hours of it. It was some weird obsession with NBC, as if suddenly beach volleyball was the only sport that counted. There was never any discus, javelin or pole vault when I tuned in.