Long plane rides can get cold. If they last 13 hours and you’re next to a behemoth man with his AC vent on high, they can get very cold. I always end up next to that man (be it my 6′5″ husband, or the 6′5″ 300lb man I had the good fortune of being paired with on my way home from Beijing), and therefore always wear a long-sleeved something-or-other on flights.Well all I had heard about pre-Beijing was how hot and sauna-like it was over there, and I fully blame that for my not remembering to pack anything with long sleeves for the flight over. So my first purchase on our first night in China was a Beijing 2008 Olympics team USA zippie. Useful for our arctic hotel room, and, I was thinking, also for the flight home. Unbeknownst to me, it was also the same zippie that our US athletes were issued. I herein became a poser Olympian for the rest of the trip. A “Polympian”, if you will.

This wasn’t actually that big of a deal in Beijing because the only places I wore it were our frigid hotel room and just once to a club. It was freezing that night. What do you want from me? Now granted, I also had on flip-flops, a ball cap, and jeans that I’d worn almost everyday for the past 2 weeks, but I’m married, what do I care if anyone else finds me attractive anymore? I know that statement just struck fear into the hearts of all the single men reading this blog (hi Jeff!), but go with me on this one. All I meant is it’s nice to be able to wear a zippie and flops to a club and not really care that your experience will pretty much be the same whether you’re sporting that, or you have on your cutest outfit with a killer blow-out. We were out where all the athletes go though, so I was very much committing the fashion faux pas of what Jake likes to call “wearing the t-shirt to the concert.” ‘Twould have been bad enough had I been an actual athlete gearing it up out in public. As it was, I was the “polympian”… a crime punishable by death in some Olympic circles.

And just when I thought I couldn’t be more of a disappointment to anyone than I was to the HHFC friends and family (see “All dressed up and no one to interview” post below)… enter my flight home. I had no fewer than 17 people come up to me during the pre-boarding line alone to ask me what I did at the Olympics. Did I win a medal? What was my event? What was that object in my mysterious oblong carry-on?! I so wanted to live up to their curiosity…
“Oh that, that’s my javelin. Yeah, they fold up into these handy carrying cases. Convenient, huh?”
“What that little thing? Oh you must mean my Field Hockey stick. Yeah, we were so glad to qualify. It’s been since ‘96, you know?!”

Instead I had to ‘fess up that I was just a reporter and that was my tripod case. Waahhmp Waaahhh…
I’ve never seen such crushed faces. When the young brother-sister combo from Colombia came up (autograph pen and paper in tow) to me and asked if I was an Olympian you would have thought I’d followed my “Sorry, no” with, “Oh and by the way, there’s also no Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny is a complete myth, and your Dad is the Tooth Fairy.” It was the girl who asked me and when I answered her brother shot her an “I told you so” look like none other I’d seen. Big brothers are great at calling you out when you already feel like a complete bozo. I sympathized with my little Colombian friend in that moment because my big brother also excels in that area. Still, there was nothing I could do to make my story any cooler than it was.

On the actual plane ride I got it at least 20 more times. At one point, one of the flight attendants came by, stooped down by my seat and whispered, “Ok… all the flight attendants are wondering… what’s your sport, and how’d you do?” I of course answered honestly, and was surprised to see (hear) that my answer set my whole row off in murmurs of “awww”s and “what?!” (Who knew they were all snooping in on our conversation?!). And you know they were all thinking, but where’d you get that jacket then?!

So… lesson learned. When you’re pseudo athletic-looking and traveling anywhere near an Olympic city, don’t wear misleading gear. It’s just not fair to a star-crazed fan base craving an up-close-and-personal experience with the Rings. In the States, however, where I am now… you can bet I’ll be sporting my USA zippie with pride wherever I watch the Closing Ceremonies. Here it’s not posing… it’s just team spirit. Go USA!