One thing I was sadly bereft of, however, was everything else.
Sadly, that didn't stop me from blindly following directions...
In 1973 my family flew from New Jersey to Los Angeles to spend the holidays with my grandparents. Upon arrival at the airport and amidst the expected shouts, hugs and smiles, Bob Hope and a couple of his entourage walked past us. Of course, I knew about as much of Bob Hope as I did of the Pythagorean Theorem (which was perhaps somewhat surprising considering my Math Nazi kindergarden teacher...); he was simply a face in the crowd to me.
My grandma, however, immediately noticed. "Look!" she excitedly remarked, "There's Bob Hope!"
My parents and grandpa were all sufficiently impressed. My brother, Mike, and I, however, couldn't care less. We were more interested in the fact that we were now standing within the same relative space and breathing the same air as the infamous Disneyland...
The adults were abuzz, whispering to each other and watching Mr. Hope stand about twenty yards away with his group when suddenly the adults stopped all conversation and looked directly at Mike and I.
I may not have known much, but I knew we were about to be guinea pigs.
My grandma piped up, "Boys, go shake his hand!"
Mike and I looked at each other, "...Uh, whose hand?"
"Bob Hope!" she forcefully replied, "That's Bob Hope right there! He's a very famous star!"
Mike was nonplussed; he was having none of it. But I was perhaps a little more adventurous, and weighed the shy and embarrassed factors with the "gain the love and attention of my parents and grandparents" factor.
I was leaning toward giving it a go, but before I could officially decide, suddenly my grandma had taken my hand and was quickly dragging me over to Mr. Hope where she definitively deposited me two feet behind him and then gave me a little shove. Bob had his back to me and was talking with two other gentlemen; I turned around one last time to the anonymous comfort of my family, took a breath and faced him again.
"Excuse me, Mr. Hope?" I squeaked to the back of his slacks. Bob turned his head in mid-sentence and, surprised to find me there, stopped and looked down at me with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. I went in for the kill, "...Can I shake your hand?"
The world stopped - it seemed that all noise, all conversation throughout the airport stopped at that moment in baited anticipation of his response. ...But we didn't have to wait, it came instantly.
"Sorry kid, I'm in a hurry," he spat at me as he turned back around and started walking off with the other guys.
I stood there with my arm extended, not fully computing what had just happened (and, let's be fair, not really caring either...I was mostly relieved that it was all over), as sound returned to the airport and life began moving again.
But, oh, it so was not over.
The next thing I knew my 70 year old grandma was literally running past me, instantly catching up to Bob, grabbing his arm and whirling him around to face her.
"How DARE you!" she angrily admonished him. "This little, innocent child simply wants to shake your hand, to acknowledge that you mean something to him and that he appreciates it, and you simply toss him aside like a piece of garbage?!"
Bob, mouth gaping, was absolutely stunned.
But my grandma wasn't done, "You march right back over there, shake his hand, SMILE, and tell him 'thank you.' Right now." She stood there, hands on her hips, with a huge, disappointed frown on her face.
Color rushed into Bob's face - I could see it ten yards away. He dropped his eyes, took a breath, and meekly replied, "You're right, I'm sorry." Then he walked over to me, held his hand out and said, "I'm sorry little boy, that was very rude of me. I'd be honored to shake your hand." He smiled widely.
Now I was stunned.
My grandma was all powerful.
I think I wanted to shake her hand instead of this random guy... But I shook it because it was important to my grandma and I knew it would make her happy. Bob mussed my hair, turned around and looked at my grandma for approval.
Arms now crossed, she gave him the once over. "OK," she paroled him, "Thank you. Nice job."
I was reminded of how much of a tool I was during this experience as I watched last night's fiasco on Survivor. As Probst previewed last week, "In perhaps the dumbest Survivor move in the history of the show..." ...you knew it was going to be major.
But what happened wasn't satisfying by any regard; instead, it was cringe-worthy, an embarrassment to the nth degree.
Look, I'm not going to bag on JT for thinking of the move to secretly give Russell the immunity idol; remember, not one of these people have seen a single episode of Russell's evilness from last season (they were filming this season while last season was being aired). And the "Villain" label has clearly been diluted via the inclusion of Courtney, Sandra and Danielle. So, I do understand the concept of trying to make a "bold move."
But, geez - my five year old brain could have written a better letter than JT wrote. Hell, I was surprised that he didn't dot his "i's" with hearts. It was soul-sappingly horrendous. "Destroy this after you read it..."?!?!
And yet, the bigger sin was the rest of the Heroes blindly following JT's lead on the whole scheme. Give Amanda just a small smidge of credit: at least she considered that this might be a bad idea. Regardless, the rest of them not only went along with it, willingly handing over their tribe's testicles without a thought to the spectrum of consequences, but then basking in their assumed post-coital glow, convinced of how great they were.
No matter how much you hate Russell, you HAVE to be routing for him. He is a force, and, perhaps more importantly, every other person remaining sucks.
All I could think about as Rupert cackled with glee was how much this tribe needed my grandma to walk in out of the jungle, hands on her hips, and start yelling at them to GET THEIR GODDAMN HEADS IN THE GAME.
Sheesh.
Either that, or we'll be singing, "(No) Thanks for the Memories" to the hero tribe very shortly...
Until next week,
PB
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