STRANGER THAN FICTION: COMPETING WITH GUYS NAMED SYCHO SID IMPOSSIBLE

It's tough to know when a mere interest in professionalwrestling has crossed the line into obsession.

It's easy to pick out a Monday at our house.

I stagger home from work looking like I've been clubbed, but The Other Half rushes in with a big smile on his face. He runs to the remote like a beleaguered Republican to a cellular phone, ready for his regular Monday-night action.

Lord help me. My husband loves watching grown men in spandex slam each other to the ground.

If you like that kind of thing, Monday nights are the best. You can flip between Monday Nitro, the World Championship Wrestling organization's show, and Monday Night Raw, the World Wrestling Federation show. The difference in the two escapes me -- although there seems to be a deep philosophical debate among wrestling enthusiasts on which one is wrestling in its purest form.

It's impossible to describe my feelings when I come home to find wrestling on our television. I'll sit through televised stock-car races, watching cars go around in a circle and waiting for someone to wreck. I'll sit through the endless college football games, waiting for a cool touchdown dance.

But I just can't watch another two guys in sequins and makeup dance around above a crowd of wild, screaming spectators . . . OK, unless it's a really good drag show.

Apparently it's not the matches that most interest Mr. Half. The same man who laughed at my shock over "The Young and the Restless" replacing Grace, Victoria and Phyllis with different actresses spends an hour a night reading professional wrestling plot lines on the Internet.

Here's an example: In the WWF, Brian Pillman lost a match with a special stipulation -- he'd have to wrestle wearing a dress donated by Goldust's wife, Marlena, until Pillman won another match. Three matches later, he's still sporting the dress. In a fit of rage, Pillman announced last week that HE actually fathered Marlena's daughter.

Now tell me how that's any more interesting than Josh's ex-wife trying to escape from a mental institution and kill herself when she finds Josh has married Nicki, a recovering alcoholic still obsessed with her ex-husband Victor, who is dating Diane, a woman formerly engaged to Jack . . .

You get the picture.

Now Monday Nitro, televised on TNT, is coming to Pensacola for Labor Day, and Mr. Half wants tickets. And he wants really GOOD tickets.

"I can't sit up high away from the ring!" he said. "What's the good of going if you can't even see the action?"

Mr. Half explained the benefits of sitting in spitting distance of the ring instead of up in the cheap seats. First of all, you have to be close enough for aging wrestler-turned-actor-turned-wrestler Hulk Hogan to see your "NWO Stinks" sign on neon posterboard. Second, you can't splash a wrestler with your beer from the fourth level of seats. Third, when you act like an idiot near the ring, you get on television. Do the same thing on the fourth level and you get ejected.

I must admit, I accompanied Mr. Half to the WWF match in Cape Girardeau last fall. Our seats were so close, I felt the sweat off Sycho Sid's hair when he swung around to face Goldust. And yes, it was a nice two hours' entertainment, although Mr. Half was devastated when WWF champ Shawn Michaels not only turned down his request for a newspaper interview, but used the pitiful excuse that he was too tired.

Too tired to talk, not too tired to jump from the top rope onto a disabled Mankind. You make the call.

Yeah, that was all good, but now Sycho, Goldust and their TV buddies are cutting into my precious time with my man. And there's only one thing to do about it.

I'm finding someone who can sew me one of those little sequinedspandex outfits.

~Heidi Nieland is a former staff writer for the Southeast Missourian who currently resides in Pensacola, Fla.