Posthuman Blues

I'd like to buy a vowel

This evening I walked down to LatteLand and was greeted by a swarm of milling pedestrians and a black stretch limo. I didn't think much of it at first. I bought a latte and sat down to read. Then I tuned into the ambient conversation and discovered the limo belonged to none other than "Wheel of Fortune" sidekick Vanna White, who was shooting a promo for the show outside Steve's Shoes nextdoor.

I was disappointed; I irrationally hoped it might be Natalie Portman. Even so, I found myself joining the crowd outside, where technicians with high-definition cameras and eye-scalding lights were preparing for the shoot. Vanna was sauntering around blankly, like a DisneyWorld animatron with a head-wound. She looked like, well, Vanna White -- older and shorter than I had expected, but still very pretty. I shuddered with concealed laughter as security personnel attempted to corral the small mob of rubberneckers. (The black guy who asked me to step back a few feet had a name-badge reading "White." "Any relation . . . ?" I asked.)

Vanna's script, if one could call it that, involved strolling past LatteLand clutching perfectly empty shopping bags from various stores on the Country Club Plaza. I experienced a fierce urge to run down 47th Street to Barnes & Noble and slip her a copy of "After the Martian Apocalypse."

The first shoot done, a crew member from "Wheel" informed my section of the crowd we would be videotaped. It was then that I realized I was about to appear in a "Wheel of Fortune" commercial. Everything became quite surreal; Vanna passed right in front of me next to the locally famous "boar sculpture," a forbiddingly life-like bronze uber-pig whose lustrous nose is due to untold thousands of hands rubbing it for good luck.

She uttered something about "from Kansas City" and timidly rubbed the boar's nose, bidding "Wheel" contestants good luck. Clever. Then, on the director's cue, everyone yelled "WHEEL . . . OF . . . FORTUNE!" Including me. I was right there, immediately behind Vanna yelling and applauding like a mind-control casualty.

The moral? Set your VCRs, because I honestly don't see how I can fail to be in this commercial. I'm wearing a long-sleeve pale-green checkered shirt.