I COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER

London -- The Closing Ceremonies of the XXX Olympic Games were briefly interrupted on Sunday evening by a portly spinster's frantic efforts to speak with Lord Coe and the Olympic Organizing Committee.  "DON'T BLOW IT OUT YET, MISTER COE!", she was heard to exclaim. "I'M NOT QUITE FINISHED YET!"  Despite her rather blatant breech of Olympic protocol (and not to mention the fact that he is, indeed, LORD Coe and not "Mister"), the crowd applauded mightily as she scrambled to the podium. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, honored guests, athletes, and portly spinsters everywhere....I ask you to harken back to a time when you attempted a feat and fell short.  I ask you to look within yourselves to the deepest part of your competitive spirits and remember what it was like to come within inches of finally reaching your goal.  Doesn't everyone have a memory of a dream not realized -- glory left unattained?  It is with a humble and contrite heart that I ask -- no, beg! -- you to allow me to finish my special Olympic stitchy project.  I'm so close!  I know that if given the opportunity and enough dietCoke I could have the piece finished and off to the framer by week's end!  Please!  Five more days!" 

 With this, the crowd erupted into roaring approbation, security was told to stand down, and the spinster was carried from the stadium by a group of Belarus weight lifters who, as it turns out, were the only ones equal to the task.  After a few days in the Tower of London cooling her heels, rumor has it that the spinster has returned to the productive confines of her Happy Chair in Hoosierville, USA to set about the task of completing THIS once and for all: