The Host Would Be Chuck Woolery

I had my annual car wash yesterday. "Ha!" you may be thinking. "You're exaggerating for comedic effect." Yeah. Ha ha.

I should have taped myself and sent it to The Game Show Network as a potential show, "What's That Stain?" The pollen is a no-brainer. It could be the "Are you illiterate or crazy?" question on the applicant questionnaire. The salt stains on the undercarriage would screen out a lot of duds though.

You see, if it were winter, the answer would be obvious but I don't think a lot of people would expect a memento from a snow storm five months after the fact. I could see a potential contestant hunched over, staring at the salt stains in front of the show's producers and director. Contestant 142, a mom from Sacramento, CA with four rambunctious kids who bashfully signed up for the audition after seeing a three-line ad in the 'Ramento Weekly, unconsciously twists the silk blouse she bought the night before. The head producer, Helen...Belen, yeah, Helen Belen, gives a nasty glance to the goateed director tapping his foot. "Do you give up?" she politely asks.

Contestant 142's dreams of sending her first two kids to college are fading faster than a pee stain on a carpet. "Cla-cla-cla-clunk." The noise Uncle Harold's muffler made when pulled up to her house last winter bubbled up from the deep. Harold's eyes were bloodshot, his clothes were wrinkled, and he held on to the wall to stop teetering. He drove 42 straight hours from Minnesota after stumbling on his wife making love to a teenager he hired yesterday to shovel his snow. He wouldn't speak about how he got the blood stains on his blue flannel shirt. Why was this memory coming up now?

"Ma'am?" said Helen Belen. Helen hated being mean but there was a long line of contestants. "Okay," says the contestant, "I--" Winter. Snow shoveling. "I got it!" screams the contestant. "They're salt stains from the snow. And my name isn't Contestant 142. It's Mary, Mary Madision!"

Helen stretched her lips and smiled. "That's right. Thank you for coming. We'll get in touch if we need you." Mary skipped out of the room and Helen shook her head. Another nut.