Waiting for the bus yesterday I had an idea for a TV show. This often happens to me when I’m waiting for the bus, or in the shower—I have ideas that I think are awesome, but then later realize I was just really bored. Anyway, in my idea I was like Bam on Jackass—where he goes up to people on the street and does annoying shit—except I’d be like a Polite Jackass. For example:
I see a guy on the street. I’m at 1st and Seneca. “Do you know where Pike Market is?” I ask him. I don’t say Pike MARKET with the stress on the “market” to make it sound even somewhat close to Pikes Place Market, but PIKE Market, with the stress at the beginning.
“You mean Pikes Place Market?” he asks.
“No, no, I was told about a Pike Market.”
“Well, I don’t think that exists. I do know how to get to a Pikes PLACE Market, though.”
I pause. “But…you don’t know how to get to Pike Market?”
“Well, that’s just the thing: I don’t think there is a Pike Market. I think you’re thinking of Pikes PLACE Market.”
“With all due respect, sir, I think I’d know if there was no Pike Market.” I’d always be saying “with all due respect.” It would be one of my Polite Jackass trademarks. I’d be at McDonald’s and say to the guy, “With all due respect, sir, I ordered a cheeseburger.”
Anyway, the guy looks at me like I’m a lunatic so I just start rubbing my chin thoughtfully and say, “OK. What do they have there?”
“At Pikes Place market? Everything: fruit, fish, flowers, salmon, food.”
I pause and look pensive. “And what do they have at Pike Market?”
You get the idea. Really dumb, but also funny. Another idea I had was where I get onto a public transit bus and put a penny in the coin dispenser and ask, “Can i get a transfer?
Then the bus driver laughs or gets stern and says, “You didn’t put enough money in,” so with a concerned look on my face I say “How much is the fare?”
“A dollar fifty” he says, and I go, “Oh crap, crap, I’m sorry” and reach into my pocket and pull out a nickel and put it in the dispenser, and wait, looking at him expectantly. At this point he either gets really mad, or keeps laughing, or someone on the bus, probably someone demented or obese or wearing a dirty Mariners hat or listening to a transistor radio, loudly says, “Its a dollar fifty. You gotta put a dollar fifty in if you want to ride the bus. Stupid.”
And then I turn and say, “A dollar fifty? When did it go up?”
As you can see, I’m sitting on a veritable gold mine of ideas. And by “gold mine” I mean “pile,” and by “ideas” I mean “excrement.”
-Wetzler