How's It Going To End?

On Friday night, the Tiki Gal and I went to Dale and Carol's for cards. During the past week, we'd been half-joking that because we had had such a good time at the concert the previous weekend, we should go see the same show in Chicago in August. We decided to stop joking and get serious about it on Friday night so Carol is currently working on arranging our trip. Dale and I had originally thought we might surprise the girls and arrange the trip ourselves but as you've seen from my past experiences, I shouldn't be arranging a trip to the grocery store much less to Chicago. Dale has had a bad experience with coordinating a vacation as well - involving nightly bed checks for scorpions - so we decided it was in the best interest of all of us (and maybe for national security as well. After all, Chicago has already burned once…) if we let Carol make the travel plans.

During our trip to Dallas, we found a beer and wine store near our hotel so we picked up some new beers to try.

Leinenkugel's 1888 Bock

Color: Amber

Skunkiness: 0 skunks. As Carol so succinctly put it, "Not skunky, but funky."

Taste: Although the label said it was a malty beer, we didn't taste much malt. We thought it had more of a bitter hop taste than anything.

Comments: The girls summed this beer up better than I ever could. Carol said it had a "whang." The Tiki Gal said she'd rather have Budweiser. These are not ringing endorsements.

Carol Rating: 1 on her scale of 1 or 5.

Rating: 2.5 pints out of 5.

Maredsous 8 Belgian Dubbel

Color: Dark chocolate with a creamy head.

Skunkiness: 0 skunks. It smelled sweet.

Taste: Rich, creamy and malty with a citrus tone.

Comments: This beer is similar to Chimay and as I've noted here before, Chimay is one of our favorites. Maredsous 8 may even be richer than Chimay.

Carol Rating: 5

Rating: 4.5 pints.

Paulaner Salvator

Comments: We've had this beer many times before. It is still one of our favorites and we are extremely happy that we can now buy it locally.

Rating: 4.5 pints.

We also managed to play some cards. The Tiki Gal won at Cutthroat. I'd have to search through all our various score books but I don't think that has ever happened before. We then split two games of Pitch. Dale and I won the first game and the girls won the second.

As I mentioned in my previous post, on Sunday after the Jimmy Buffett concert we made a startling discovery. It all began in the elevator on our way down to breakfast. A woman wearing a sorority tee-shirt was in the elevator when we boarded. It was hard to tell how old she was because she had obviously had a hard evening the night before but I think she was between twenty and seventy. While the elevator was descending, we were talking amongst ourselves and Dale said something funny. The woman looked over at Dale and asked "How the hell can you be so perky?" with a look of real disgust on her face. We laughed and started talking about the perils of concerts. She then actually said ".. and I don't know why my ass and legs are so sore." Dale mentioned that this might be information she wanted to keep to herself - for obvious reasons. Then the elevator doors opened and she shuffled slowly and carefully away.

During breakfast, Carol observed that we tended to meet really interesting people on our trips. We then determined that Dale and Carol don't meet these interesting folks when they vacation without the Tiki Gal and me. However, the Tiki family always meets those kinds of people no matter where we go. We then started putting the facts together: my red light curse, my vacation misadventures, the fact that restaurants are frequently out of whatever I order, dirty dancing lunch ladies, and freak weather patterns. These events are all very similar to the movie The Truman Show. In that movie, Jim Carrey plays a man named Truman Burbank who is raised from an infant to adulthood inside a reality show. The show is set inside a huge studio that appears to Truman to be a city on an island. Everyone in his world is played by an actor, including his family, his best friend and his wife. The director of the show puts Truman in various situations to drive ratings but for the most part, Truman's life is managed so that things run smoothly.

Our theory is that my life is being managed similar to The Truman Show except the technology has been greatly improved. Instead of restricting me to the inside of a set built in a studio, spy satellites and miniature cameras follow me wherever I go in the world. Whereas Truman's life was idyllic in nature, however, the producers have decided to throw as many weird situations at me as possible in hopes that I will crack. How else can you explain the fact that on a drive from Tulsa to Dallas and back, I hit exactly two green lights? Two out of hundreds. The odds of hitting just two green lights have to be slightly worse than the odds for winning the lottery. Obviously, the producers are keeping track of me with a spy satellite and are changing almost every light to red just as I arrive. This must be the running gag in the show, right? Everyone laughs when the Tiki Man pounds the steering wheel in frustration at the thirty-fourth red light in a row.

Also, how else do you explain the dirty dancing lunch lady? She was obviously a cast member paid to do that, right? Please say she was. Please...

The final clue I needed was provided this past weekend. As I thought more about the similarities between my life and The Truman Show, I decided I needed to watch the movie again since it has been quite some time since I'd seen it. Unfortunately, Blockbuster didn't have it so I checked Amazon to see if it was available for pay per view. No such luck. I had about given up on seeing it again when the Tiki Gal turned on the TV on Saturday morning. The TV just happened to be tuned to TBS and guess what had just started five minutes earlier. That's right. The Truman Show. Coincidence... maybe. Serendipity... definitely. Or maybe, just like in The Truman Show, someone out there is trying to show me the truth about what is really going on in my life.

As I watched The Truman Show, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the use of product placement. The Truman Show was on twenty-four hours a day so there were no commercial breaks. Therefore, the producers had Truman’s wife pitching products like lawn mowers and hot cocoa. If my producers happen to be reading this, I think that Porsche and Apple would be wonderful sponsors for my show. Also, “This episode brought to you by Royal Caribbean… Get out there!” has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Since I have the producers’ attention, I’d also like to suggest a plot line that would really bring in the ratings. What if the Tiki Man was actually a bar tender at his very own tiki bar on an island in the Caribbean? The Tiki Gal and Carol could braid hair and Dale could be in the house band. Just think of the ratings bonanza during spring break when you are filming all the stupid things the college kids do in the tiki bar. I would watch that. When I move to the island, however, I’d like to take my Porsche and all my Apple products. 

I am now curious about the status of my friends and family. Are they actors getting paid to be a part of my life? If so, the Tiki Gal deserves a lot more than she’s making – no matter how much it is. She has gone way beyond the call of duty at times. (Like that time in Las Vegas… uh, on second thought, forget I said anything.) I’d also like to applaud the casting of a few of my family members. That was a really inspired talent search and couldn’t have been more diabolical or funny. I tip my hat to you.

I do realize that some people will think I’m a few fries short of a Happy Meal. There is even a medical condition for people who think like me called Truman Show Delusion. I only partially believe my life is an elaborate charade being enacted purely for entertainment or research purposes, however. Mostly, I think the things that happen to me can be blamed on being in the wrong place at the right time. Besides, my life is highly entertaining. I wouldn’t want to walk off the stage like Truman at the end of his show. I’m too interested in finding out the answer to the question, "How’s it going to end?"