In all likelihood, I will never have a gold medal. And neither will you. Unless you’re, like, two-time Olympics men’s skeet shooting champion Vincent Hancock or something. Wait, are you two-time men’s skeet shooting champion Vincent Hancock? Wow. That would be weird. Hi, Vince!
But, yeah. For most of us, having a gold medal is just a dream, which is a shame, because it seems like it would be pretty fun to have one. Let’s think about this a bit, shall we?
Having a gold medal would be pretty awesome because you could be really cool about it if you wanted to. Like, you could go to a party and just make normal conversation and nibble on snacks and wait for it to come up, which it probably would, either because someone you know will use it to introduce you to someone you don’t (“This is Rick. Fun fact: Rick has a gold medal!”), or because someone will tell someone and then a whisper-y game of telephone will rumble through the party until a curious soul with a few drinks in his or her system will stumble up to you and ask about it. And in either situation, you can just play it off real modest, because you waited for them to come to you. “Oh. Yeah,” you can say, acting almost embarrassed to even be talking about it. You’re now both humble and the most interesting person at the party. Unless there’s an astronaut there. Try to avoid going to parties with astronauts. They are shameless one-uppers.
Or you could go in the complete opposite direction and start wearing your gold medal everywhere. You won’t come off as well to most people because it’s a little tacky, but who cares? Do they have a gold medal? Probably not! Who are they to judge you? Maybe if they didn’t want you to wear that gold medal everywhere, they should have dedicated their life to training and competing at the highest level of the same event and beaten you at it. Did they ever think of that? I bet they didn’t. So maybe they should just keep quiet about it, Larry.
Having a gold medal would also be cool because you could screw with people. Screwing with people is great and you should do it a lot. One time I spent half a semester of college telling people that former President Grover Cleveland invented drywall. I was trying to see how many times I could do it without getting corrected. I never did. Try it sometime. No one knows enough about Grover Cleveland or drywall to prove you wrong. Another good one is trying to convince people you’ve never heard of the Beatles. (“Paul McCartney? The guy from Wings? Really?”) The key is to really commit.
Anyway, having a gold medal gives you a great opportunity for these kinds of things. When people ask you what event you won it in, you can just lie. Say you won the pole vault. No one really understands the pole vault or remembers who won, so you can just make up facts about it. (“They’re testing out poles made from eucalyptus that could revolutionize the sport. People in controlled settings are shattering the world record.”) Or if you did win the gold for the pole vault, say you won it for, like, weightlifting. And if you’re a big fat weightlifter, say you won it for trampoline. Hell, make up an Olympic sport if you want. If you look someone in the eye and really sell it, you could probably convince them parkour was an Olympic event only in 2004, and that’s what you won your gold in. At least until someone pulls out their phone to “Well, actually” your fun. Real gold medalist in raining on parades, those guys.
Another thing you could do: Carry it in your back pocket into a convenience store, get a soda or iced tea, and then when the cashier rings you up, toss the medal on the counter and ask if he can make change. This will not be funny to the cashier. Or anyone else, probably. But what else are you gonna do with the medal? Frame it and leave it in your house? Nah. Let the whole thing go to your head a little. You’ve earned it.
Depending on what you won it in, it could also be cool to keep your gold medal a secret. I’m thinking specifically of Olympic sports that double as recreational activities, like table tennis or badminton. So like if you move to a new town or something, you can just keep that information in your back pocket and wait for some poor schmuck to challenge you to a game of ping pong. “Do you play?” he’ll say.
“Yeah. A little bit.”
Smash.
Smash.
Smash.
Then after game point, when your opponent asks you how you got so good, you can say, real casual-like, “Oh. I won the gold medal in table tennis at the Olympics.” Then watch the jaws drop.
Yeah. It would definitely be fun to have a gold medal.
