Does anyone else feel a little uneasy in the time surrounding, and especially during, the Olympics? I always feel so worthless whenever I watch them, particularly the women’s events.

While watching the Olympics during high school, I’d always keep one eye on my parents and one eye on the screen, scanning their expressions to see if they’d have that disappointed “Annie, that could have been you” face.

Sometimes I ended up not caring about who wins the medals and instead searched the screen for that girl who spent her entire 17-year life training for one Olympic event and just came in seventh.

That sucks. I wonder if she thought it was worth it. Don’t get me wrong, seventh place worldwide is a huge accomplishment. But part of her had to be thinking, “Fine. It’s over. I’m a failure. NOW can I eat some donuts?”

I speak from experience. When I was 13 and on a local swim team, this evil 14-year-old named Trish Jackson edged me out from my rightful place on the Timber Trails Swim Club 13-14 Girls Medley Relay.

Our group of four had won gold medals at the annual inter-suburban conference for three years now. I was the slowest of the four, so swam the final freestyle leg, also known as the “let the other people get the lead for you and then try not to fuck it up” leg.

But suddenly, we did “time trials” during practice and Trish Jackson swam freestyle faster than me. I was devastated. I had to swim butterfly, the hardest stroke, in the B relay. At meets, I watched the other three - MY three - gossiping with the cool older girl from two lanes over.

Trish never put on her bathing cap until two seconds before her event was called - she was that cool. I envisioned mauling her in the face with her bathing cap, forcing her into the water only to be drowned by her own wayward locks of hair. “MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE WORN YOUR BATHING CAP!” I would have screeched, in cold blood.

Then it came time for the biggest event of the summer, the inter-suburban conference. Booyah. I still wasn’t on the medley relay, but I was one of two Timber Trails representatives in the 50-yard freestyle event along with - you guessed it - Trish the Dish. We were so close in time that she was the third seed and I the fourth, out of 20 swimmers.

The pressure was high. I can honestly say, even after ten subsequent years of beer and nachos cravings, that in my entire life I have never wanted anything more than to beat her time, even by one hundreth of a second. I had never won a medal of my own, and this was my chance. It would be mine. Pure, glimmering, bullet-proof… bronze.

(Sidenote: this just proves that I am not Olympic material. I don’t need to “win it all.” I just need to beat the people I don’t like.)

Race time. I looked over at Trish. Still no bathing cap. She was making friends with girls from other teams, totally NOT focusing on the race.

I decided I would beat her. Maybe, throughout my intense swim club career, I just hadn’t been trying. Maybe I wasn’t using my spindly little limbs to their fullest capacity. That was it. I would simply swim faster than ever, at a pace not even the coaches would believe. Those evil dictators, Bob and Marc, would be stopped dead in their tracks at the side of the pool, able to muster up only enough movement to reach up and slowly lower their knockoff Ray-Bans in utter amazement.

The most pathetic self-psych-up of all time ensued. I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, thinking that might help. I performed the “visualization” exercise our coaches had taught us, except my version didn’t involve the race, just the moment after the race, when my name would come up next to “3″ and Trish would look perplexed. And then start to cry.

It was settled. I would win the bronze medal and Trish would get the puke yellow 4th place ribbon. I was sure of it.

Then she beat me by .04 seconds. My insignificant 13-year-old world crashed down around me.

Well, sort of. After all that drama, I’m pretty sure I hid my oppressive, overflowing emotions from my mom and simply begged her to take me to Applebee’s or something. It was easier that way, plus I got to eat Applebee’s.

Because, you see, I’m not Olympic material. And nothing looks prettier next to puke yellow than an Oriental Chicken Salad Rollup and huge fountain Coke.