Rodeo on TV

Our friend Stacie recently moved to the Dallas area. I picked up the phone one weekend right after she moved there and had a conversation that went something like this.

Stacie: "Hey, what's on NBC in your house right now?" Ben: "Hang on let me check....Um...I'm not sure what this is. I think it must be at commercial. Give me a minute." S: "Is it a rodeo?" B: "Uh, yeah, I guess. Are they really showing rodeo on NBC?" S: "Whew. I was worried that they really showed this all the time here."

In my surprise to actually find rodeo, I missed a great opportunity. The conversation should have gone more like this.

Stacie: "Hey, what's on NBC in your house right now?" Ben: "Hang on let me check....Um...Ice skating. I fucking hate how they drown you in ice skating right before the Olympics start." (As I recall, Stace loves that ice skating crap.) S: (sounding a little panicked) "What? Seriously? You really have skating on NBC?" B: (cooly) "Yeah. Why the surprise? What's on there?" S: "A rodeo!" B: (feigning shock) "Rodeo?!!! Who the hell shows rodeo? Who would watch that? Boy, I hope you subscribed to a cable plan with lots of choices."

If you think about it, it is actually pretty bizarre that this is what NBC chose to air on a Saturday afternoon in February. Did they even air it in the big metropolitan areas? I have to think that they could have found an irrelevant NBA game, a Senior Tour golf event, or the Olympic trials for the curling team, and any of those would have blown away the rodeo.

But I wear a belt buckle small enough to fit between my gut and where my pants zipper starts, so what do I know?