Your "Why Is That Watermelon There?" Quizo Update

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine this weekend, and at one point she mentioned that she was fairly upset that over the next couple weeks she has to do a great deal of traveling for work. Something about three states in two weeks. I thought this was a pretty trifling stretch; when I drove cross-country I did 11 states in 8 days. It would have only been 6 but I was trapped in a hotel in Oklahoma City for three days by an ice storm (the tale of said trip being a long story unto itself).

However, in a rare moment of trying to be helpful, I said, "well remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Words to live by, those.

"Yeah," she said. "Hey, what's that from? Is that like Zen or something?"

"No," I said, "it's from Buckaroo Banzai."

"Are you sure? I thought somebody like Buddha said that."

"No," I said, trying to maintain my composure. "It's Buckaroo Banzai."

"I could have sworn I saw that on a TV show once – "

"NO!" I shouted. "It is fucking well Buckaroo Banzai!" I couldn't believe she was arguing about this with me.

Then came the words that really got my blood boiling.

She said, "what the hell is Buckaroo Banzai?"

(gasp)

(sputter)

Once I regained my composure at hearing such a shocking utterance, I started shouting again.

"You've never seen Buckaroo Banzai?"

"Uhm… no?" she said.

"You've NEVER SEEN The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension?

"Uh…"

"Red Lectroids? Planet 10? The Oscillation Overthruster? Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems? NONE OF THIS RINGS A BELL?"

"Okay, please stop yelling."

"How can you be an adult human and not have seen Buckaroo Banzai? What kind of sick childhood did you have?"

"I didn't – "

"Did your parents beat you with a leather strap when you were a kid? Chain you to a radiator in the basement? Did you subsist on rats?"

She finally got me to stop shouting when she said, "okay, see, this is why we never dated."

"Yeah," I said. "It's also why we never will." Though I'm not sure we were talking about the same thing by that point.

Never seen Buckaroo Banzai. What kind of hideous, twisted society allows that to happen?

Okay, so check this shit out: last week I was driving home from the Sev one afternoon and as I went past the front lawn at Lincoln I saw there were a bunch of kids out there playing CRICKET. I swear I am not making this up. They had the white sweaters going and everything. I mentioned it to someone I know in England who is a cricket enthusiast and noted that the closest equivalent would be for her to drive past a grade school over there one day and see a bunch of kids playing a pickup game of Your Garish American Football in full pads. Cricket. At Lincoln High School. I can't live in this world.

In other news, the Oxford English Dictionary reports that they will be adding a new word to their next edition:

Met (verb): to have a lead and subsequently lose it, to play poorly under pressure, to perform below expectations. See also "choke (verb)" and "Mickelson (douchebag)."

And I just found out that tonight's Flyers-Devils game isn't on television, so after the Buckaroo fiasco and Chelsea failing to beat United yesterday, that's just one more thing to be pissy about (as though I needed more). Oh well.

I suppose it's not all bad news. After all, the US won the Ryder Cup (yeah, stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Europe!) on a golf course that appeared to be a scale replica of the Appalachian foothills, there's a pennant race that the Phillies are actually winning, and last night I was able to do my favorite dance: the safety dance!

Yeah, okay, I'm sorry about that, it won't happen again...

JLK