“Hel-lo! I’m Parker Day, coming to ya live from the Party House in Daytona Beach, Flo-ri-da!”
The crowd goes wild, and Parker gives them a moment while he mugs for the camera. “Brought to you in living madness by Rad Soda—the Soda of Our Generation.” Parker takes a slug from his Rad XL can and hands it to an assistant. “Today on What’s Your Category? we’ve got a new challenger, Cameron, an audio boss from Te-jas. Cameron, come on down, my man.”
I move to my appointed spot beside Parker, who has a cheat sheet with all my info filled in, courtesy of Ann “Iphigenia” Jones. “Cam—it says here that you have mad cow disease. Is that right?”
“Yeah.” Man, I hope we’re long gone before this airs.
“So how’s that going for you?”
“Uh … it sucks?” I say.
Everybody laughs and Parker slaps me on the back. “You’re funny, Cameron. I like that. Okay, Cam, as you know, on What’s Your Category? we ask you questions about your area of expertise, which is …” He puts his mug right up in the camera and drops his voice low. “Audio boss!” I’ve seen Parker Day enough to know that they’re doing some cheesy reverb action on his voice when he says “audio boss.” It gets the whoops and hollers from the audience, though. They’re expecting it. “So. I will ask you the questions printed out on these white cards in my hands. If you answer successfully, you will advance to the next round of questions, where the cash values are even higher. But if you miss a question, we’ll be forced to take a toe. Just kidding.”
The crowd laughs at his lame joke. I glance down at Gonzo, who mouths the word pendejo, which makes me feel a little better.
“No, if you miss a question, you’ll be forced to sit in the …”
“Dunking chamber!” the audience screams.
A couple of stagehands in black T-shirts and jeans hustle a portable potty with a big red HIT ME button on its side onto the stage. Parker opens the door so that everyone can see inside. The smell knocks me back. A rickety platform is poised above the open latrine. Somebody’s placed a shoe on the platform.
Parker pinches his nose with his free hand. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen and Cameron. Once you’re placed in the Dunking Chamber you will be asked an all-or-nothing question. If you answer correctly, we will double your winnings and you will not need to shower with a household pine cleaner for a week. But if you answer it incorrectly …”
Parker hits the HIT ME button. The chair above the potty releases the shoe into the latrine with a loud flushing sound. The shoe is sucked down into a hose large enough to hold a person and flushed out into God only knows where. The camera zooms in on the clear plastic tube so that the fans back home don’t miss a single disgusting minute of human waste. In the front row, Gonzo looks like he might be sick, and I’m wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.
“You’ve had all your shots, right?” The audience laughs and Parker gives one of those dazzling smiles he’s so famous for.
A stagehand helps me up the ladder and gets me in position on the platform. It smells like the kind of farts your grandfather lays down. The lights are hot, and all I can see in front of me is a mass of tanned, half-dressed bodies in various stages of drunkenness.
Parker shields his eyes with the card-holding hand to look up at me. “Cam, you okay up there? That mad cow disease kicking in?” He leans in to the camera and uses that low voice everyone loves. “Moo.”
There’s a lot of foot stomping, clapping, and cheering. I just want to win some cash and find my yard gnome. It’s not a lot to ask.
“Okay, let’s do it. Cameron, who sings the Rad soda anthem, ‘Make Mine an XL’?”
The Rad soda anthem is only on TV or the radio every fifteen minutes. He’s starting with the easy ones.
“Uh, that would be Big Philly Cheese Steak.”
“You are absolutely right. And a big one hundred dollars goes into the What’s Your Category? account.”
The light-up board rings and flips over a flashing one hundred sign. The crowd cheers. Somebody screams out, “Dunk him!”
“Question number two, Camster. What album does the coyote use to trick the roadrunner into thinking there’s a stampede of elephants after him? Take your time.”
“El—” I start.
Parker holds up a hand. “Take your time. Don’t rush.”
Oh. Right. He wants me to milk it for the home audience. Create suspense.
“Uh,” I say, screwing up my face like I’m trying to solve one of my dad’s quantum physics equations. “I’m not sure, but I think, I think it’s Elephants Are After Me, Volume One?”