The Adventures of Gord Watching Hockey

 

Tales from the Golden Goose: The Adventures of Gord Watching Hockey

Gord avalanched into his recliner. He grasped the TV remote and jabbed his thumb down on the button of power.

Rapid-fire images of commercial enticement cascaded and danced before his eyes. Gord dragged air in and out of his lungs. His mouth sagged open.

One image at last flung hooks of interest that caught hold of his eyes and tugged. Hockey. The blaring theme song called to his blood.

Gord burrowed into the creaking leather of the chair and watched, watched, watched.

The play ceased. The period break slammed into his absorption like a body check. Gord stirred in his chair. His domelike stomach emitted a deep, gurgling, rhinocerotic growl.

From a rotund bowl on the table at his side Gord captured a rippled chip of potato. His jaws snapped down upon it, his molars grinding, grinding. The heady savour of salt and caustic vinegar smacked his olfactory and gustatory nerve endings upside the head. Swiftly he snatched up another chip and crushed it into paste, then another and another.

With a decisive squeeze he wrenched off the unwilling cap of a cold brown bottle, tilted his head back and sluiced down a foaming, bubbling tide of Alberta-made big-name brand beer, his neck pulsing like a wild thing.

Hockey returned and again Gord watched with all his might, his capacious flesh jerking and rippling to the movements on the screen, grunts and other ejaculations of vicarious team spirit and zeal rising frequently from his throat. Come on!... Damn it!... Aww jeeziz guy!…Oh … oh … oh YEAH!

There were many exciting plays, and more beers cracked open and chugged down to toast them. At the appointed time the game ended, happily as it turned out for the team of Gord’s affections. The late evening news came on. There were a few broken bits of potato chip left in the bowl. Gord plucked them out and ate them, staring glassily at rapid-fire images of unpleasant happenings around the world. Then the sports news came on and Gord relived the night’s most exciting plays and cheered once more at that totally awesome goal.

With his tongue Gord zambonied the remaining crumbs and salt from his lips. A Brobdingnagian belch volcanoed up from the core of his being, followed by a face-cracking, leonine yawn that shook his mighty frame and shuddered down into his toes.

Once again, as he had before, Gord prodded the button of power. The screen went dark.

Silence bombarded the room like an aerial bombardment of very quiet warplanes.

Gord's eyes clanged shut like portcullises. He stampeded his way down into the beery vales of sleep.

Author's note: this piece began as a writing exercise about verbs. I wanted to see if I could make a very passive activity sound active and exciting by using strong, active verbs. I chose the most passive activity I could think of -- sitting in a recliner watching sports on TV -- and very quickly I realized the combination of slothfulness and power-verbs could only result in something very silly. So I let it become as silly as it wanted to be and this is the result.