Apparently Amazon added a bunch of Price is Right episodes called “The Barker Era” to their hoard, and Grib is watching a couple of these things a night. I just pulled one up to verify what he had told me: that it’s an incredibly robust Time Capsule that cuts through every layer. Fashion, palette, aspirations… the ambient radiation of an era. Dangerous Barker particles leapt straight through flesh – famously an enemy of animal cruelty, he had less chivalry perhaps for the human women who might share the stage. It’s an insane diorama, and its descriptive power projects down into the substrata.
Someone thought they might be able to fact check us on the price we quote, but it was looking at that price that gave us the idea to begin with.
When I was watching a game show like this, I didn’t need to earn and spend money on anything except candy. Any guesses I would make as to the cost of something were completely random, unmoored from any material consideration. My father was something called a Switchman/Brakeman, and when he was home during the day he was usually asleep, but sometimes during the summer he would come out of the bedroom in the morning in his underwear to watch The Price Is Right or Press Your Luck; his fear and distrust of the Whammy was all-consuming. He would pour an entire box of Lucky Charms into a salad bowl, fill it with milk, and eat it with one of the same plastic spoons I’d get spanked with.
He was very good at The Price Is Right. I thought it was because he was some kind of genius, but it might just have been because he’d bought things at stores.
(CW)TB out.