You must have heard about the smashing men’s 400m swimming freestyle relaymatch on Monday, right? About how Michael Phelps’ team won by an exruciatingly dangerous close lead of a mere 0.08 second. That’s right, in less than a split of a second, they beat France, the favourite team touted to win this race.

It was close, real close. And when this exciting, intense and dramatic race was going on, I heard the narrator’s high-pitched, high volume voice going on in my TV set, and I thought “Wow, what is going on there? Must be very exciting,” as I continued to busy myself with a chore.

You know a match must hold something unique and special for a narrator to raise his volume higher and higher at the same time increasing his speed of speaking. In a soccer match, that translates to an impending goal. In swimming, that means someone is doing a fierce catch up in the last 50m, and if they speak even faster, then the show is on for the last 20m.

This race was the case here.

But, I couldn’t run to the TV and take all those high adreanline in. I had an all-important task to attend to at that time. That chore warranted my immediate attention, because any delay would lead to a catastrophe. Someone in the family would have one piece of garment less to wear. No. I couldn’t let that happen. That would be a crime too big to commit, or at least that’s what my too-smart brain was considering.

If you haven’t guess what this ultra-pertinent, urgent must-do task that I was busying myself with, let me tell you now. This idiot here was line-drying her clothes at the kitchen.

Gee, what a clever and extremely wonderful choice I’ve made. At that historic moment, I was line drying my clothes! Wow! Give me a high five!

I really want to kill myself. Alas, no knife is sharp enough at home. And I’m worried it’ll leave an ugly scar. No, this method is out.

And to rub salt into my wound (ouch), the newspapers carried the story and described vividly those intense and hair-pulling seconds in the water.

My one and only consolation was I didn’t know this race was coming on. Or else I would have glued myself at that strategic spot at the precise time. But I still can’t forgive myself for not acting when I heard the narrator rambling on at a pitch and speed that I haven’t heard of, until that race.

Today, when I knew about the 4×200m freestyle relay, I learnt my lesson.

And, very coincidentally, the washing machine gave that nice, loud beep telling me the laundry has been done. (Yes I know! These 2 days happen to be my laundry days, what can I do???)

This time, the clothes can wait.

Michael Phelps, being the first to go, gave his team a leading edge with a world record breaking time, which was maintained by all the rest. How big was the lead? Two body lengths.

So there they were - getting the gold in a most impressive way - breaking the world record for this event by going under 7 minutes at 6min 58sec, shaving off 15 seconds off a world record in Seoul Olympics 20 years ago. 20 years, 15 seconds. Took so long for the record to hit a 6. On this day, the Americans did it.

What an amazing feat.

I’m glad I let the clothes wait. Wooh…