Mister Faded Glory | www.misterfadedglory.com

As few of you know (though even fewer of you care), I’m currently in training for future contestantship on Wheel of Fortune. In fact, as I’ve discovered through playing along with several DVR’d episodes, Wheel of Fortune is America’s Game. Well, that settles it. No dream is more quintessentially American than my desire to stand up on stage and pummel two bozos at word puzzles.

Now, don’t call me a Mensa just yet. I’ve begun training for Wheel after finally realizing I may no longer be smart enough for Jeopardy! Too many Milwaukee’s Beasts and reruns of Two Guys and a Girl over the years have robbed me of some of my trivial intelligence. For example, I can no longer tell you who played Beethoven in Amadeus.

Anyway, training’s going well. Tonight I solved each and every puzzle before the contestants, while watching from my elliptical machine at the gym. Not content with simply internalizing each triumph (I solved ‘Spelling Bee Champion‘ with only three E‘s on the board), I chose to spout off each answer, out loud, a burst of victory inaudible to me, but loudly boasting my intelligence to a full row of treadmill-striders. You’re fucking right, it was Seeing London from a double-decker bus. That hyphen was a dead giveaway.

Yep, that was me. Churning on the elliptical, listening to Right Next Door to Hell (why don’t you write a letter to me?), ruining everyone’s else’s fun with some macho attempt to virtually prove myself on a quaint game show. This made me slightly more annoying than the joker in the backwards Game hat and black ankle socks, obliviously karrioke-ing around the track; but still far less annoying than the puffy-chested loser in a tank top loading up the calf press with three plates, pausing ten minutes in between each set of four.

But that’s our sacrifice. Someday the Wheelmobile will roll into my town. And I’ll be ready, dammit.