American Icons

Do we have any American Idiot(I mean Idol) fans out there? Duh...is Chocolate its own food group? How many Gummy Bears are in a family size bag? These are important issues that I ponder every single day!

I may have mentioned once (or twice) before, that I am in charge of the Lost & Found at my work. Every day that someone comes in looking for something they lost, I have them fill out a form which I then include in the body of an "all staff" email at the end of the day. I also include any items that are brought to me, found by a good Samaritan or just anyone who is tired of looking at things sitting on the floor in their classroom.

In the beginning, the emails simply listed all the lost and found items. They were quite boring, even to me. Nobody paid any attention to these emails. I thought if I could say something clever, maybe I could get one or two people to look at the email, and thereby find the owner of an article. So, I stole jokes out of "Joke of the Day" calendar and after a few months, I finally had a response from one person. (Sort of like this blog!) Well, the attention gave me all sorts of false confidence, and I expanded my repertoire. I would include comments on what I watched on TV the night before.

Then, American Idol bit me and the infection is still ongoing. I would make up little "personal facts" about some of the contestants and write as if I had just finished an interview with them. Soon after, I began to work on the judges. Simon gave me a lot of material. As the competition dwindled down to the top ten, I would critique with much passion those contestants that were either really bad, or really good. It was fun to make predictions, because at this point, I only had two readers, and would only have to answer to them.

After five years, I now have five readers. They look forward to reading my opinions and love to comment with theirs. (Sort of like this blog!) I think I can safely say that I have provided six votes to the program (my five readers and myself). Of course, these votes are but mere grains of sand in the whole picture of voters, but my false sense of confidence keeps me striving to increase my numbers!

I've started attending AIAA meetings (12 Steps for American Idol Addicts) and have met the most interesting people. We share our stories about being a slave to the show, talk about the snacks we ate during the show, and discuss the types of seating arrangements we have (couch, chair, lazyboy, bed, etc.) while we watch the show. We seem to get sober around mid-May, and then cave sometime in January of the next year. Abstinence is not an option, however, we strive to only watch each show one time, even though it's been Tivo'd!

We are getting down to the wire, with the finale coming up next week. I think it's anybodys game at this point. Simon needs a man-size Binky to quiet himself. Paula needs a more outlandish ensemble. Kara is too new to criticize, but I will say that as the "New Kid on the Block" she should hold back some of her brutal honesty. Randy, who makes me smile just to watch him, needs to speak the Kings English more often. Have I left anyone out? Oh, yes! Ryan! He needs to wear clothing that is bigger than the size he thinks he wears!

If you are a fan, please enjoy the dream, the singing, and that wonderful confetti that comes out of the ceiling when the winner is announced!