Story Every Day – Day 6

Got yesterday’s SED in just an hour or so under the wire. I like the idea of this one, but I was super rushed since I threw The Boyfriend a birthday party, so the execution’s a bit lame. I may go back and rework it, or I may just let it sit on my hard drive for the rest of eternity. Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

When I was a kid, I’d always wanted to be a game show host when I grew up. I consumed a steady diet of vintage games shows growing up, like The Match Game, The Price Is Right, Supermarket Sweep, The Gong Show, Family Feud, and The Dating Game. That’s how my cat Lily and I spent most of our summer afternoons. I figured I’d be like one of those pastel-suited hosts from the ‘70s, with the skinny silver microphone and teeth so white and straight they were probably fake.

When I was 25, my time finally came. I got a chance to host of public access quiz show called Bubble Smack. Not only did they let me wear a pink polyester tuxedo with black velvet trim, they insisted on it. On the nights leading up to the show’s premiere, I’d lay in bed and fantasize about seeing my name—Don Davenport—on the TV screen.

The premise of the show was simple: the contestants answer questions, most of which are about pretty gross stuff like famous murderers, diseases, internal organs, and a good number of odd things I don’t know much about, and if the contestant gets it right, they get points, if not, they get pummeled by bubbles filled with Nickelodeon-worthy slime. The entire show is pretty gross and seedy, but all great game show hosts have to start somewhere.

I even have my own equivalent of Vanna White, a lovely bleach-blonde named Lucille whose main job is to bring out stain samples during the Name That Stain segment. She looks more like a dominatrix than Vanna White, though. She even whips people sometimes.