I’ve got the Olympics on in the background as I putter around online. Beach volleyball is on. Misty May, the dominant player in the sport, apparently, is playing. The commentators are commenting. Her father, Butch, played volleyball in the '68 Olympics, but Misty’s main mentor was her mother, another volleyballer. Her mother died four years ago. Misty has her mother’s initial’s tattooed on her back.
And Misty brought some of her mother’s ashes (her mother was cremated, obviously) with her to the Olympics.
I don’t find that “:eek:” at all. Kind of touching. Now if you’d said she’d used her mothers ashes to make the ink for the tattoo on her back, that would be a little freaky. But I’ve heard of all kinds of requests of people to take their ashes someplace special after they’re cremated. Isn’t terribly logical, but I can see the sentimental value.
I don’t see how reporting it is particularly grotesque. OK, I DO know that there are people who are just totally squicked out by the very idea of keeping and bearing of mortal relics. But it’s kind of extra-sensitive to be disturbed by just hearing about someone who does keep and bear them.
I’m not squicked by cremation (both of my parents were cremated) or dealing with the remains (I helped spread my mother’s ashes with my own hands) – I’m a little weirded out that a) she brought a baggie of her mother’s remains to the Olympics with her, and b) that the commentators had heard about this (i.e., she had told someone about it) and passed it along as normal color commentary.
I was a bit creeped out because the commentary went on and on and on and on and on and on.
First we had to hear about the entire history of her parents.
Then we had to hear about her tattoo.
Then we had to hear about the ghost of her dead mother pushing the ball over the net. Apparently the ghost of her dead mother isn’t above cheating, also, apparently Misty May would rather attribute good hits to her cheating dead mother than her own skill.
Then we had to hear more about the tattoo. Then we got a butt shot.
Then the capper was the information about the ashes.
Honestly? To me, the commentators made her family sound like a bunch of freaks to me. Like they’re freakishly obsessed with a woman who died several years ago.
When an opponent is going up for a block, Misty likes to disrupt her concentration by throwing a handful of Mom’s ashes in her eyes. But she’s running low on Mom’s ashes, so she’s scheduled a visit to the nearest crematorium so she can purchase the remains of some anonymous dead person to use.
Is that her name or her general policy? Based on the team uniform, it could go either way. :dubious:
But seriously, I saw the same thing the OP did, and it was a bit ghoulish, but somehow par for the course. For some reason, this year’s Olympics has been highly weird in comparison to past Games.
