I have some irrational fears, though probably no more than the average person. For example, I am so afraid of locking myself out of my house that I cannot lock the door on my way out unless I am actually touching my keys. It’s not enough to know they’re in pocket because I know I just put them there; I must actually be feeling them with my fingers at the time the door is closed.

You might think, “Eric must have locked himself out of the house at one point, hence his obsession with not letting it happen again.” But you are wrong, buckaroo. I’ve never locked myself out of the house. And why haven’t I? Because I never lock the door unless I’m touching my keys while I do it, that’s why. Call it excessive, call it paranoid. Just don’t call me from your cell phone when you’re locked out of YOUR house because you neglected to feel your keys with your fingers before you left!

My other fear is of entering the wrong public restroom. For example, the one for ladies. To prevent this, anytime I use a public facility, I always double-check the sign on the door, usually going so far as to stare at the sign as I enter the room. Why keep staring at it? Why not just look at the sign once and then confidently enter the room? Because after I look at the sign, I might get distracted or disoriented and walk into the wrong room anyway. YOU NEVER KNOW.

Which leads me to a story. Last week I was at Portland’s downtown public library when the need to use the facilities came upon me suddenly and with considerable force. It was not an urge so much as a demand. So I located the restrooms, down a short corridor from the main lobby, and as I was about to walk in, I noticed the bulletin board covered with fliers and announcements. My mind wandered briefly as I considered what sort of event a person sponsors for which advertising at the library is most effective. The Portland library, like all downtown big-city libraries, is populated mostly with stinky people and layabouts. For what activity is this your target audience? A job fair? A big ol’ public bath?

While I was thinking about this, I entered the bathroom. But as I did so, I thought, in the back of my mind, “Wait, I neglected to double-double-check the door.” It was OK, though: I could just check for the presence of urinals to confirm I was in the right place.

It was a small bathroom, with one large stall that was occupied and another, smaller stall next to it that I assumed would contain a urinal. It did not, however. It was a regular stall with a toilet and a door. But by now my half-formed sub-conscious thought process had changed. It was OK that it wasn’t a urinal because I didn’t NEED a urinal. I needed the full complement of restroom facilities. I closed the door, cleaned off the seat (even though it didn’t need it, which also struck me as odd), and proceeded to conduct my affairs.

The person in the stall next to me left about then, and two new people entered the bathroom together, chatting. They had women’s voices. I thought, “Dear me, what have I done?!” I realized that at that very moment, I was voiding my bowels in feminine territory.

The shock of this realization was so great that it was a good thing I was sitting down, and on a toilet, if you know what I mean. It would be one thing to mistakenly enter the women’s restroom, immediately realize your error, beg the pardon of any ladies present, and withdraw. It seemed quite another to already be in the act when the error was discovered. To leave now would suggest to the bathroom’s occupants either that I had used this restroom on purpose, or that I was so stupid I had entered by mistake and not realized it until I was finished.

I weighed my options. I came up with four.

OPTION 1: Casually exit the stall as if nothing were amiss and feign shock when I saw women there. “Wha–?! What are you doing in–?! Oh, dear, is this the ladies’ room? Oh, my. I seem to have made a grave error. A thousand apologies, ladies.” And I would quickly leave, tipping my hat as I did so.

OPTION 2: Remain in the stall until the library closed and then sneak out.

OPTION 3: From within the stall, make the following announcement: “Excuse me, ladies. I’m afraid I’ve just realized that I entered the women’s bathroom by mistake. Please do not be alarmed. I assure you the act was unintentional, and I will vacate the premises at once, just as soon as I have zipped up, flushed, and washed my hands. And dried my hands, obviously. Is it paper towels, or one of those air dryers? Either way. Actually, you know what, I can just wash my hands in the men’s room. Not a big deal. So yeah, I’ll leave this bathroom immediately — I’m almost finished here — and then I’ll go. I’m very sorry. Does anyone have a magazine or something? It’s a library, I should have thought to bring something in. Anyway, yeah, sorry.”

OPTION 4: Wait until I was alone in the bathroom, and then escape.

I decided that No. 4 was the most feasible and the least embarrassing and wouldn’t require me to be wearing a hat, which I wasn’t. I considered the shock that a woman would experience if a man suddenly emerged from a stall in her bathroom, and I also considered the calling of security that would surely ensue, no matter how much I protested that it had been an honest mistake. I did not want to be one of those people you hear about who get banned from libraries. I mean, a LIBRARY. It’s not like it’s an exclusive place. ANYONE can go there. All they ask is that you don’t look up porn on the Internet when librarians are watching, and don’t spy on women in the bathroom.

So I concluded my business and then just sat there, waiting for a window of opportunity. I was wearing shorts, so I tried to keep my bare legs hidden from view, lest someone see my hairy shins and conclude that I was a man. Of course, this being Portland, they could have seen my hairy shins and still concluded I was a woman, but still.

The problem with my plan was that I was never alone long enough to dash out. As soon as someone would leave, someone else would enter. I considered using my cell phone to call in a bomb threat to evacuate the building, but of course the women in the bathroom would hear my voice. So I’d have to text-message someone and have them do it for me. I can think of a few friends who would probably do it if I asked them to, but I didn’t want to call in that sort of favor for something like this. Best to save that kind of thing for a real crisis.

A woman and her daughter, who sounded about 6, came in and used the other stall, both of them, at the same time. Is this what people do? What does the one do while the other is “going”? Just stand there and watch? Seems weird to me. Men won’t even stand at adjacent urinals if they can avoid it, let alone enter a stall together and make a tea-party of it.

At last the room fell silent as the last person exited. I cautiously poked my head out of the stall — and saw a woman standing at the mirror, fixing her hair. I quickly withdrew back into the stall and locked the door. Luckily, from her angle, she couldn’t see me in the mirror. I waited.

More women came and went, and I lost track of how many times the door had opened and closed. Plus, I didn’t know how many were entering or exiting each time it opened. Finally it was quiet again and everyone seemed to be gone. I peered out again, and that same woman was still standing there, playing with her hair.

This was wholly unacceptable. No one else was coming in! If it weren’t for the hair lady, I’d have had a clean getaway. I began to resent her and her high-maintenance ‘do, which from my brief glances I could tell was hardly worth all the effort she was putting into it. FINALLY she left, and no one came in after her, so I scurried from my stall and out the door. I had made my escape undetected.

I tell you this story as a caution. Some people may tell you that your fears are irrational, that you are overly paranoid on certain subjects. I’m here to tell you to keep worrying. Someday, you’ll be proven right.

I love music. When life seems complicated and impossible, I like to turn on the radio. The top hits of the day always remind me that, no matter what troubles I may have, at least I ain’t no holla back girl.

As my young, hip readers know, that was a reference to “Holla Back Girl,” the recent No. 1 song by Gwen Stefani. It is probably the best song of all time.

Consider first the point of view of the song. It is set in the gossipy world of high school, where Gwen has heard that “you” (I don’t know who she means, but I don’t think it’s me) have been talkin’ crap and you didn’t think that she would hear it. Apparently what you’ve been saying is that she’s a holla back girl — which, as she explains in the chorus, she ain’t — and now she wants to meet you out back after school so she can beat the tar out of you. This is how I know she definitely is not talking to me, because everyone knows I would never show up for a meeting where the agenda included beating me up. I have former employers who will corroborate that.

The reason the song strikes me as funny is that Gwen Stefani is 35 years old and has not been in high school for nearly two decades. She has recorded the song in an obvious and shameless attempt to capture a teenage audience, even though she is old enough to be the mother of most of the people she is targeting, people who surely do not find their own mothers very interesting. It is so obvious and shameless, in fact, that I am going to copy it. I’m going to record a hip-hop song called “School Sucks and That Girl is Hot, Fo Shizzle.” What teenager in the country WON’T love it?!

Anyway, “Holla Back Girl” also highlights Gwen’s curious obsession with her own feces. She sings the phrase “this my s***” 33 times in the song. Of course, she means “this IS my s***,” but I guess leaving out linking verbs something very cool nowadays that the kids doing.

Anyway, I don’t know why she keeps saying it. Of course it’s hers. Who else’s would it be? Who’s arguing with her? If she claims ownership of some particular fecal matter, far be it from me to contradict her.

Later in the song, she observes that the gossip situation has gotten entirely out of hand. Maybe everyone is whispering about the creepy 35-year-old who keeps lurking around the school. I don’t know. But the situation has gone “bananas,” she says, employing a decades-old slang term for “crazy.” To underscore her point — and this is really very clever, poetically speaking — she spells out the word. She sings:

“This [crap] is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S!”

Then she sings it about 11,000 more times. When she is finished, she has left us with no doubt: This crap is, in fact, bananas. I picture her looking at it, amazed, as she thinks, “Have I eaten nothing but bananas for the past three days?! I must have, for indeed, this crap is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S, bananas.”

Speaking of food, there is also a band called the Black Eyed Peas, and they have a song whose title is “Don’t Phunk with My Heart,” so already you know there’s going to be trouble. This song contains the following couplet:

“Crazy is what crazy do
Crazy in love; I’m a crazy foo’.”

Here the singer has used the clever rhyming technique known as “making up words.” He realized that “does” and “fool” do not rhyme — but “do” and “foo'” sure do, foo’!

The shocking liberties he has taken with the English language should not overshadow the strength of his message, though. When you think about it, crazy IS what crazy do. What truth could be plainer? It’s not bananas at all, my friend. Not bananas at all.

My first official act upon moving to Oregon was to get a speeding ticket. I made sure to do this almost as soon as I had crossed the border, to get it out of the way.

It was near a place called Baker City, and the State Police officer said I was doing 91 in a 65. I have every reason to believe this is true, more or less. They use those radar guns, or at least they say they do. I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. The cop always says, “I clocked you going 91” (or whatever; I’m not always going 91 specifically), and I take his word for it. I just believe him that he has some magic device in his car that tells him how fast I was going. He could tell me there’s an elf with excellent depth perception who sits on his dashboard and announces the speeds of passing vehicles, and I’d have no choice but to believe him. What am I going to do, demand to see the elf?

Anyway, this particular officer said I was going 91, and so it was. He wrote me a ticket and sent me on my way. As I drove away, I looked at the ticket to see how much it was going to cost me.

Now, I’ve gotten speeding tickets before. Most of us have, I think, at least once. You figure for speeding on the freeway, it’s going to be eighty, maybe a hundred bucks. Maybe as high as one-fifty if you’re in freeway-intensive, money-desperate state like California. And that’s part of the risk. You know you’re speeding, you know there’s a chance you might get caught if you don’t keep your eyes peeled for Smokey, and you take that into account when you choose to drive fast.

My point is, if I had known a speeding ticket in Oregon would cost $431, I wouldn’t have sped. They should put it on the sign when you enter the state: “Welcome to Oregon! Speeding tickets are $431!” Or more to the point, “Welcome to Oregon! Bend over!”

Four hundred thirty-one dollars! That’s an outrageous amount of money. I bet if I called whichever county it was and asked someone, they’d admit it’s outrageous. They’re probably embarrassed by it.

My friend Rob, with whom I am living in the Portland suburbs until I find my own place, is a sheriff’s deputy, and he examined the ticket carefully, looking for ways to support my intended “not guilty” plea, which we will file by affidavit (I’m certainly not driving to Baker City again) in an attempt to have my fine lessened. He found several things wrong with it — nothing strong enough to invalidate it altogether, like the cop signing “Up Yours” instead of his real name — but enough to make a case that the judge should at least lower the fine. Rob is a good friend. Of course, if he were a REALLY good friend, he’d make the ticket go away altogether. But alas, in addition to being a good friend, he’s also a good cop. What I need is a good friend who’s a bad cop. One of those would come in handy.

The preposterous traffic fines are one of the things native Portlanders don’t tell you about Oregon when they’re babbling on and on about how great it is here. When you visit, all you get is, “It’s so green! And there’s no sales tax! And the people are so laid-back!” Once you’ve actually committed to relocating, then the truth comes out. “Yeah, speeding tickets are the same as a month’s rent. Oh, and feral dogs roam the streets, making it unsafe to go out at night. Oh, and once a month there’s a poison gas leak that forces the evacuation of the entire city. Just so you know.”

The other day it was raining so hard that a river of water was flowing down NW 21st Avenue, where I was trapped in the lobby of a movie theater. The Portlanders gathered and gawked and pretended to be surprised at the event, but they weren’t fooling me. I know as soon as I left, they got in their gondolas and paddled away, saying, “Do you think we convinced him this isn’t normal? Do you think he’ll stay?”

I’m not going to move to Portland and then complain about all the rain, of course. That would be like moving to Utah and complaining about all the Mormons … which, in fact, occurs daily on the Letters to the Editor pages of Utah’s newspapers, and far be it from me to act like one of those crackpots. No, I will embrace the dampness. I will grow to love it as I sit on street corners and beg for spare change. If just 1,724 people give me a quarter each, I’ll have enough to pay off the speeding ticket.

Holla! And by that I mean “holler,” and by that I don’t know what I mean. I just heard the kids saying it. But it’s time for another installment of Ask Eric Stuff!

You know the drill: It’s a power tool used to bore holes in hard materials. But that’s irrelevant. What’s important is the routine: People submit questions and Eric answers them, quickly and with everything spelled correctly. Sit back and enjoy, and holla! (I think.)

Dear Eric: My sister wants to come visit me, but I don’t want her to stay in my apartment with me. How can I tell her that I wish she would visit me but stay in a hotel? — Selfish Sister
Dear Selfy: Make it sound like you are only looking out for her best interests. Say, “Oh, sis, I’m so glad you’re coming to visit, but I think you’d be so much more comfortable at a hotel, where the people don’t hate you.”

Dear Eric: Why is it that my neighbors in my apartment complex feel the need to play mariachi music at 2 a.m.? — Sleepless
Dear Sleepy: Have you considered that perhaps your neighbors are mariachis? And if they are, then what sort of music would you expect them to play?

Dear Eric: Who decided there is no such thing as a stupid question? — Joey Joe Joe
Dear Joe: Whoever he was, he never met you.

Dear Eric: I can’t stand the humidity where I live but I can’t move away. What should I do? — Sweating Like Crazy
Dear Sweaty: Complain to everyone you meet about how much you hate the humidity. That way, you’ll be moist AND annoying.

Dear Eric: Our neighbors still have four little fake Christmas trees — complete with lights — in their front yard and it’s making us all look like white trash by association. How can I tactfully solve the situation? — Annoyed in Albany
Dear Alby: Move out of the trailer park, white trash.

Dear Eric: Someone told me I shouldn’t go after guys that are “out of my league.” How do I know what my league is? — Lucy Leagueless
Dear Major Leagues: There’s no such thing as “leagues.” Anyone can be paired with anyone. Opposites attract, right? So just find someone who’s the opposite of you. (Hint: He’ll be good-looking.)

Dear Eric: I can’t get my baby to sleep through the night. — Sleepless in Salt Lake
Dear Sleepy: That’s interesting. Now, does anyone have any questions for me?

Dear Eric: Why is it that every time I drop the toast, it falls with the butter side down? — Butterfingers
Dear Butty: I think the real question is, why are you always dropping your toast? Are you missing some fingers? It’s not hard to hang on to a piece of toast, genius.

Dear Eric: Why do some Americans hate Canadians? — Random
Dear Randy: WHY?! Come on! Have you SEEN those people?! But I kid. In truth, Americans hate Canadians because they’re jealous of them. I think it’s childish and that it should stop immediately.

Dear Eric: How often should one shower? — Ripe in Rhode Island
Dear Rhodie: Every day, unless you’re Canadian, in which case you can just go outside and let a polar bear lick you all over once a week or so.

Dear Eric: How did you get this job? — Asking in Austin
Dear Austio: The Internet was hiring columnists, so I went down to Internet headquarters and filled out an application. I love working for the Internet! They’re a great company.

Dear Eric: Do you think you’ll spend the rest of your life in Portland? — Northwesterner
Dear Northy: Yes. Sadly, that’s only another four days. (Don’t worry, I’ll build you a rainbow.)

Dear Eric: Why can’t I lose the rest the weight I gained from pregnancy? The “baby” is almost two! — Chubby and Crying
Dear Chubby: Well, maybe you should finally give birth to the poor thing!

Dear Eric: Is Michael Jackson guilty? — Jury Duty Hound
Dear Duty: Of being a fabulous dancer? YES!

There was a time when all of America followed major league baseball avidly. Your average person watched the games, discussed the players, bemoaned the injuries, railed against trades, and knew the intricacies of the infield-fly rule. It was a simpler time, an era when baseball was our national pastime.

That time was 1910, and it’s because there was nothing else to do. Today, people think baseball is boring, steroids and other scandals have reduced the players from heroes to criminals, and the only time the nation at large takes interest is when the Red Sox win the World Series, or the reanimated corpse of Lou Gehrig performs an unassisted triple play, or whatever.

But as I have mentioned in this column before, I grew up with Dodgers baseball on the TV, the folksy voice of announcer Vin Scully calling the plays as my dad and brothers watched their champions perform day after day through the spring and summer. A fondness for baseball is ingrained in me, regardless of how rarely I actually watch a game. I like the IDEA of baseball. The fact that it continues to exist, despite receiving no outward support from me whatsoever, makes me happy. It’s like ballet in that regard.

But on Memorial Day, my entire family went to a Dodgers game in Los Angeles. (The Dodgers actually play in Los Angeles, unlike the “Los Angeles” Angels, who play in Anaheim, except they don’t want to admit they live in Anaheim, which you wouldn’t either, if you lived in Anaheim.) All of us were there: my parents, my three brothers, my two sisters, my one brother’s wife and their little baby, my one sister’s boyfriend, and my aunt who was visiting from out of town — 11 of us in all, plus the baby. (I guess that makes 12. I don’t know why I wouldn’t count the baby as a person.) It was only the second time in my life that I’d been to Dodger Stadium, and the first time in several years that the entire family had all gone anywhere together. We’re together often enough for holidays and such, but to actually GO somewhere? Like, as an activity? It never happens. Too many people and schedules to consider, not to mention the cost, not to mention the unlikelihood of finding an activity we can all agree on. Mostly we prefer to sit around the living room and make fun of people we know, and even that has to be scheduled carefully.

The idea to attend a Dodgers game came from my brother Jeff, the most ardent baseball-lover in the family. He wanted to go very badly, and with a highly persuasive marketing campaign, he convinced the rest of us that we wanted to go, too.

In fact, even the great baseball fans in the family, including my dad and my brother Chris, were mostly indifferent about it. At various times leading up to the excursion, nearly everyone tried to back out. But all would-be deserters were reminded that the ENTIRE family was going. If even one didn’t make it, it would ruin the experience. So we all went, understanding that if it wasn’t a particularly thrilling thing to do, it would be a nice thing to have done. We wouldn’t like going, but we would like having gone.

It was a perfect day for a ball game, sunny and warm but not too hot. It began with an operatic mishandling of the national anthem, after which, since it was Memorial Day, some very loud planes flew overhead. (Fighter jets, fireworks, marching bands: Why is patriotism so loud?)

We were playing the Chicago Cubs that day, and of course by “we” I mean “people other than myself.” Things did not get off to a good start. The first Cubs batter, on the second pitch of the game, hit a home run.

But no matter. We were at the ball game! We bought peanuts and Crackerjack, both of which required a home equity loan, and we didn’t care if we never got back, whatever that means. (I mean, why wouldn’t you ever get back? Are you expecting to meet your death there at the ball game? Will the game go into an infinity of extra innings? Kind of a dismal song, really.) We were in the cheap seats, too, amid the rabble, the drunks and the rowdies. There were many Cubs fans around us, openly taunting Dodgers fans. To be a Cubs fan is sad enough, but to go to other people’s stadiums just to harass them? There are some deep psychological issues at play there. At one point the Cubs fans were dancing around in front of the Dodgers fans, which caused some Dodgers fans to throw objects at the Cubs fans, which caused the Dodgers fans to be ejected from their own stadium. That was rude, but awesome. We needed a good laugh, considering that on the field — there was a game going on, I occasionally noticed — the Cubs were beating the pants off us, though only figuratively so far. This just made the Dodgers fans angrier. I suspect that if an actual bear cub had wandered into the stands, the Dodgers fans would have torn it limb from limb, especially if the cub had been from Chicago.

One popular thing to do when the game is boring is to inflate a beach ball and toss it around in the stands. This is prohibited, however, and the ushers and security guards will confiscate the balls if they can get their hands on them. See, The Man doesn’t want you doing anything to amuse yourself. You watch the game, or you DO NOTHING! Do not seek entertainment elsewhere.

I discovered two things about baseball over the course of the game. First, I could not name a single current player for the Dodgers. Not one. All I could think of were Dodgers from the 1980s, like Mike Scioscia and Fernando Valenzuela, none of whom are still on the team. Some of them are not even still alive.

Second, I learned that people no longer yell, “Hey batter batter, hey batter batter batter batter, swing!,” and that perhaps they never did.

The high point of the game came when a man leapt from the stands and ran across the outfield, eventually planting a little flag in center field before being tackled by security guards. They take their security very seriously at the ballpark. As soon as the guy’s feet touched the grass, about a dozen trained professionals were in pursuit of him. Several more guards took stations at the field entrances to seal off the crime scene. Vin Scully was hustled by Secret Service agents down to his underground bunker.

The Dodgers lost that day, and the game was slow-moving and mostly uneventful. But we still had a fine time, we Sniders, because we were there together, every last one of us. Well, except for the last couple innings, when Jeff and his wife weren’t there anymore because they had taken their fussy baby home. Me, I didn’t care if we never got back, which we almost didn’t, what with the traffic getting out of the stadium parking lot.

At some point it became traditional for me to watch “Jeopardy!” every night with my roommate Greg and our friend Michael. In fact, it went beyond traditional and became mandatory. For me to watch it without them was considered treasonous, punishable by being sworn at.

It was not always this way. When I first got TiVo, “Jeopardy!” was my first new acquisition. It was a show I enjoyed but that I would never set the VCR to record, and that I was never home to watch when it was actually on. TiVo made it possible to watch it whenever I wanted to, and to do so in 15 minutes: no commercials, no stupid banter between Alex Trebek and his dull contestants, no closing credits during which Alex and the players chat amiably with one another while the audience applauds (after which Alex surely flees the stage, leaving the contestants to wander in confusion). Fifteen minutes, in and out, boom boom boom. “Jeopardy!” accomplished.

Anyway, it was mostly a solitary endeavor, something I would watch when I had 15 spare minutes before or after something else. Greg might pause for a moment on his way from his bedroom to the kitchen, but for the most part he remained separate from my “Jeopardy!” habit.

Then Michael, another singer in the opera program that had brought Greg to Salt Lake City, started to be a regular fixture at our place. His own apartment was co-inhabited by a pothead waitress and often by her similarly inclined friends, which lessened Michael’s desire to spend much time there. Besides, there was no TiVo at his apartment. In fact, there was nothing in his apartment at all except for things that could be smoked, or things that could be exchanged for things that could be smoked.

So Michael would come over most evenings, and the three of us would watch a movie or something, and somehow “Jeopardy!” became part of the ritual, too. We had assigned seats: Michael on the LoveSac, me in the ugly yellow chair, Greg on the couch. In these positions, and in these positions only, could we watch “Jeopardy!” One time Greg and I switched seats, for some reason, and without realizing there had been an alteration, Michael turned to the ugly yellow chair and made reference to an inside joke that its occupant had no knowledge of, a reference intended for me. Michael’s face burned with embarrassment and betrayal. The seating arrangement remained firm thereafter.

We each had our strengths in “Jeopardy!” Greg excelled at the science and sports categories; I did well on entertainment and vocabulary; Michael focused on finding double-entendres in every clue and on yelling obscenities at Alex Trebek.

Dutch doors: The height of Dutch laziness.

Michael’s hatred for Alex Trebek bubbles with an alarming intensity. It is perhaps the most passionate, baseless hatred I have ever encountered, except maybe for my friend Luscious Malone’s despising of the Dutch. (“Dutch doors?! What are those?! What, you’re too lazy to just build a window?!”)

Anytime Alex said something French, Michael mocked his pronunciation mercilessly. Alex comes from Canada and probably has at least a passing familiarity with the French language, while Michael comes from Cleveland and once used the word “demonsplayed,” a combination of “demonstrated” and “displayed.” If the clue were, “This man speaks better French than Michael,” my response would be, “Who is Alex?”

Yet there was Michael, an upturned middle finger at the ready anytime Alex essayed to speak French. And heaven forbid Alex should tell a contestant his or her answer was wrong. Such acts, in Michael’s view, were condescending and arrogant. Michael apparently believed that when a contestant answered incorrectly, he or she should be given a hug and told in gentle, soothing terms that he or she had made a mistake.

The nightly “Jeopardy!” viewing extended to Fridays, too. If this does not strike you as a normal way for three extremely hip, eligible young bachelors to spend their Friday nights, then please do me the favor of shoving it. In our defense, we sometimes watched a movie after “Jeopardy!,” though we usually just watched a “Law & Order” incarnation or the previous Sunday’s “Malcolm in the Middle.”

The routine was comfortable. We all knew that whatever nagging pressures or unsolvable puzzles the day enforced upon us, there would be solace later that evening, when we would be together for at least 15 minutes to hear carefully structured clues and their black-and-white answers. There is seldom more than one correct answer to a “Jeopardy!” clue. And when there is, they realize it during the commercial and give you credit for it when they come back. It is reassuringly simple: Here’s a question, and here’s its definitive answer. (OK, technically it’s the other way around — answers and then questions — but I always thought that aspect of “Jeopardy!” was stupid.)

Greg and Michael’s contract with Utah Opera ended in the last week of May. They and their fellow singers eagerly counted down the days until they could return to their homes, or move on to other contracts in other cities, while I sadly counted down the days until my roommate and my best Salt Lake City friend would be moving. Who would I watch “Jeopardy!” with? It had been so long since I’d done it on my own that I wasn’t sure I’d know how. What if there were a sports category? What if Alex spoke French, or used the word “unit”? I was panicked at the thought of having to respond to these developments alone.

My friends’ last week in The SLC coincided with the last week of the huge “Jeopardy!” tournament that culminated in uber-nerd Ken Jennings playing against two other nerds for two million nerd dollars. The tournament had been structured like a video game, with previous champions advancing from level to level until finally two of them faced Ken Jennings. If you beat him, you beat the whole game.

Now, I watched Ken’s meteoric rise to fame and power over the course of several “Jeopardy!” months in 2004, and I am in awe of his vast knowledge on a wide array of topics, and also of his prowess with the signaling device. (He lives in The SLC, too, you know.) I considered it insulting that he, the greatest player in the history of the game, should have to participate in this farce just to prove himself. Do you make William Rehnquist spend a day in moot court with the first-year law students? Does Mario Andretti have to take driver’s ed.? Then why should Ken Jennings have to defend his title against two pretenders?

Jerome Vered, Jon Lovitz’s wheezy doppelganger.

Nonetheless, I was eager to watch him show these amateurs how he rolls, to give them a “Jeopardy!” beating, SLC-style. Greg was mostly indifferent; Michael, on the other hand, actively rooted for another contestant, a man who is a quiz-show host in his native Pennsylvania (a fact which should have disqualified him from “Jeopardy!,” and you can bet the “Jeopardy!” board of governors will hear from me on that subject). None of us wanted the third guy to win, because he was a grotesque asthmatic who looked like Jon Lovitz.

After two days of competition, Brad Rutter, the game show host, was ahead by a wide margin. Ken was doing well, but not as well as he should have been. It became increasingly clear to me on the final night of the tournament — which was also the final night that Greg, Michael and I would watch “Jeopardy!” together — that Ken was going to lose.

And lose he did. Such ignominy! Such debasement! I was sickened to watch the winningest player in the history of game shows be reduced to a mere second place against a smarmy Pennsylvanian. (Jon Lovitz’s wheezy doppelganger came in a distant third, thank goodness.) I was further sickened to see Michael exult in his player’s victory. Michael knew nothing of “Jeopardy!” or of Ken Jennings! His support of Brad Rutter was galling effrontery, pure and simple. I raged silently, and frustratedly. Unseemly though the contest may have been to begin with, Brad had won it honestly. Like everything else in “Jeopardy!,” Ken’s loss was precise, unquestionable and fair — the very things I admire about the game.

And now the consistency and reliability in my own life were evaporating. After Ken’s defeat, I deleted the program from my TiVo and prepared to say goodnight and goodbye to Greg and Michael. This was the last time we would see each other: They were both leaving early the next morning, Greg to Boston and Michael to Houston. I was to move to Portland three weeks later. None of us had full-time employment lined up in our new locales. The well-defined answers-and-questions of “Jeopardy!” would no longer be part of our lives as a trio — we would no longer even BE a trio — and there were significantly fewer definites in our individual lives, too. Questions would start having multiple answers, or no answers at all. The comfort of our friendship in The SLC was ending, and the uncertainty of aloneness was looming. Our goodbyes were as unsentimental as we could make them, and then we stood there, chatting amiably while the audience applauded, trying not to notice that Alex had fled the stage and left us to fend for ourselves.

Earlier this month, we had a spell of very odd weather in Salt Lake City. It would be sunny, and then it would rain, and then it would be sunny again, all in the course of a few hours. Traditionally in this part of the country, if it rains, it’s gloomy all day. It’s consistent and reliable, like a Swiss watch. (Not so much like a Swiss person, of course, as the Swiss are notoriously deceitful and untrustworthy.)

But one plus side of this unusual weather pattern is that when the clouds dissipate and the sun emerges following a spring rain, you can sometimes see rainbows. I’ve seen three rainbows in the past couple weeks; I don’t think I’d seen one in a decade before that.

The downside, however, is that whenever I see a rainbow, I’m afraid my mom is dead.

Believe me, this makes perfect sense. In the late 1970s, the Mormon Church (of which I’m a member) produced film strips for young people telling stories of an inspirational and/or doctrinal nature. This was before VCRs, and film strips were cheaper to produce than actual movies. So you’d have this series of still photos run through a projector, with an accompanying cassette tape providing the soundtrack. Every time you’d hear a “BEEP” on the tape, you’d advance the film one frame further.

Everyone wanted to be in charge of the film projector, because it carried with it a sense of power. It was almost like directing the movie yourself, except the actors weren’t moving, and there was a “BEEP” telling you when to do things. But still. The problem with letting ordinary kids run the projector was that ordinary kids can be as undependable and shifty as a Swiss person, and it was often unclear which frame the strip should be on when the tape was started anyway, and so the pictures being projected were often out of sync with the soundtrack. Perceptive children such as myself would know almost immediately that we were off-track, but we were powerless to act, as the projector had been entrusted to someone else. Eventually there would be an obvious misalignment — the narrator would say, “Billy had fun sinning and carrying on in a shameful manner,” but the picture projected would match what he was ABOUT to say, which was, “but soon he felt sorry and remorseful” — and the projectionist would advance a frame or two and catch up. But in the meantime, the soundtrack not matching the images made it impossible to pay attention to the principles being taught, the same way you cannot listen to a sermon delivered by someone whose tie is crooked or whose hair looks funny. (I’m not the only one, right?)

When I was in charge of the projector, I ran a tight ship, let me tell you. I also was not afraid to put my own cinematographic touches on the experience. For example, there was a film called “Leon’s Truck,” in which a teenage boy saves money to buy a truck only to subsequently wreck it by drinking and driving. When the storyteller said that Leon was drunk, and the accompanying picture showed Leon in an inebriated state, I turned the focus knob on the projector so that Leon and his surroundings looked appropriately fuzzy. This earned a laugh, yes, but I think it also taught a valuable lesson about drinking and driving.

Anyway, probably the most famous film strip of that era was called “Families are Forever,” more popularly known as “I’ll Build You a Rainbow.” The doctrine being taught was that families can continue to be together as a family unit in the afterlife, too, and that we therefore need not be so frightened of death. (Assuming we were righteous, of course. Naughty people should still be afraid.)

“Families are Forever” was a story told in music. The verses were spoken while an acoustic guitar and strings underscored them; then the storyteller would break into the chorus, which was sung. The story was about an 11-year-old boy named Jamey whose best friend in the whole world was his mom. She played football and went on bike rides with him and stuff, and all the other kids on the block said they wished their moms were like Jamey’s mom. I’m only guessing here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them thought she was hot. I’m just sayin’.

Well, then, wouldn’t you know it, she died. Jamey got called home from school early one day and when he arrived, there was an ambulance in the driveway. He went in to see his mom, and she was in bed, and she told him she was dying. The song doesn’t tell us what she had, but apparently it came on suddenly. Food poisoning, maybe, or bubonic plague. Anyway, Jamey’s all, “You just can’t die, Mom! You just can’t!” And she tells him not to worry, because families are forever, and she’ll be in heaven waiting for him and watching over him, and he’s like, “But how will I know that you’re really in heaven?” And she thinks a minute, and then the singer bursts into the chorus:

“I’ll build you a rainbow way up high above,
Send down a sunbeam plumb full of love,
Sprinkle down raindrops, teardrops of joy,
I’ll be happy as springtime watching over my boy.”

And then she dies and they haul her away in the ambulance. Jamey and his dad are standing in the driveway and Dad starts crying and Jamey looks up and sure enough, right up there in the sky is one hell of a big rainbow, and Jamey goes, “Dad, Dad, it’s all right: Families are forever!” And then the chorus returns, this time with backup singers:

“I’ll build you a rainbow (I’ll build you a rainbow) way up high above,
Send down a sunbeam plumb full of love,
Sprinkle down raindrops (sprinkle down raindrops), teardrops of joy,
I’ll be happy in heaven watching over my boy.”

And that’s when YOU CRY. No matter who you are, no matter how funny you think the phrase “plumb full of love” is, no matter what kind of a heartless jerk you are, when Jamey looks up and sees that rainbow and tells his dad families are forever, YOU WILL CRY.

Doctrinally, I’m not sure how sound the story is. Not the part about families being together in the afterlife, because I believe that, but the part where newly deceased mothers can barge into heaven and start flinging rainbows around willy-nilly. Don’t you have to get approval for that sort of thing? Do people who have just arrived in heaven even know HOW to build rainbows? Besides, there must hundreds of mothers dying every day. They couldn’t let them ALL build rainbows, or the skies would be a never-ending kaleidoscope — but if the moms DON’T build rainbows, will their distraught families assume that means they didn’t make it to heaven?

For that matter, what if Mom does go to hell? Could she send word of that development to her family, too, perhaps to warn them not to follow in her footsteps? “I’ll build you a forest fire”? “I’ll build you a devastating hurricane”? “I’ll build you some puppies with deformities”?

I imagine Jamey’s mom approaching the first person she sees in heaven and saying this:

“Hi, hey, listen, um, I just got here, and — what? Oh, food poisoning … yeah, out of nowhere, really, surprised us all — anyway, so I just got here, and — it’s kind of embarrassing, really — but I sorta promised my kid that I’d, um, build him a rainbow? You know, a rainbow? So he could, like, know that I’m here and everything? So … who do I talk to about that? Is there, like, a department or whatever? Do I need a permit? Are there forms to fill out…?”

While we’re on the subject of songs that are supposed to make you cry whose doctrine I find questionable, there’s the recent sappy, crappy country hit “Christmas Shoes” (not to be confused with “Live Like You Were Dyin’,” “Already There,” or any of the other sappy, crappy country hits that are produced at the rate of one song per week). It’s about a guy standing in line in a store at Christmastime, and this filthy urchin in front of him is buying a pair of women’s shoes, which he declares to be for his mother:

“Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It’s Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there’s not much time
You see she’s been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight”

Because, what, Jesus can’t abide a barefoot woman? Or a woman who has shoes on that aren’t beautiful? And who says Mama will be wearing shoes when she gets to heaven anyway? I believe the old saying is, “You can’t take it with you.” Does that not apply to shoes? Is there supposed to be an asterisk next to it?

You can’t take it with you.*
*(except shoes)

Anyway, the kid in the song winds up getting the singer to buy him the shoes, because of course he’s too poor to pay for them himself. I picture him thanking the man profusely, then hurrying out the door with the shoes to his mother, who’s waiting in the car, smoking a cigarette:

“What took you so long? Here, let’s see ’em … What, these are the best you could find?! Pumps! I told you pumps! These are heels! I can’t wear these, they make my feet hurt, you stupid brat! You better get it right at the next store. And would it kill you to cry a little? See if you can get someone to give you some cash, too. Mama can’t buy lottery tickets with shoes.”

And my question is, does this make me a bad person?

It takes a lot of time and effort to make a movie, even a bad one. Take “The Pacifier,” for example. This trainwreck starred Vin Diesel as a Navy SEAL who has to babysit a brood of mischievous children. The finished product is unspeakably bad, a repulsive and unfunny combination of poop jokes and jokes in which the punch line is that Vin Diesel is doing something un-Diesel-like, such as singing or changing a diaper or walking upright.

But even this freak show didn’t just make itself. (That would have been even freakier.) The screenplay alone probably took upwards of an hour to write, plus maybe another two or three minutes to run Spellcheck. And then there were the endless script-revision meetings with studio executives, who wanted to ensure the film would reach the widest possible audience and make the most possible money. “Can we insert another poop joke?” one exec surely asked. “Market research indicates our PG-rated-family-movie audiences love poop jokes.”

“And what about a scene in which Vin Diesel runs afoul of a harmless animal?” asked another. “Could something like a hamster or maybe a duck assault him? Our market research suggests family audiences like it when animals do funny things, and by ‘funny things,’ I mean ‘anything.'”

Then there’s the actual shooting schedule, which takes several weeks. Even simple shots require technicians to set up the lights, load the film into the cameras, put the makeup on the actors, and train Vin Diesel where to stand and how to approximate human speech. (His trainer is just off-camera, issuing commands, a tranquilizer gun at the ready in case he snaps his tether and begins mauling crew members.) An ordinary two-minute dialogue scene might take all day to film. And a complicated scene, like the one where Vin Diesel falls into a sewer and emerges covered head-to-toe in human feces might require a week just to compile the feces.

All that work, and the film turns out to be terrible. What gives me pause, time after time, is realizing that, despite all the hours spent in the process, no one seemed to notice that they were creating an abomination. No one ever pulled the director aside to say, “You do realize, don’t you, that what you’re making is dreadful?”? The actors didn’t notice when they read the script that it was awful? The screenwriters’ mothers didn’t call to find out what they were working on and then, upon hearing it described, scold them into changing course? It is bewildering to contemplate.

Let us also consider the dialogue in “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith,” the punctuation-heavy new film from George Lucas. Now, dialogue has never been Lucas’ strong suit, and dialogue that is meant to express emotion of any kind is particularly a weakness for him. Witness my very favorite line in “Revenge of the Sith,” spoken during a moment of great stress by Padme to her beloved Anakin:

“Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo — so long ago, when there was nothing but our love.”

I’m going to say it again, so you can fully digest it.

“Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo — so long ago, when there was nothing but our love.”

This line is fraught with peril. Any time you command someone to “hold” you, you are already on shaky ground, cheesiness-wise. It is virtually impossible for a movie character to declare “Hold me” without causing snickers in the audience. To BE held is marvelous, certainly. But to request it by name is presumptuous. If you ever tell someone you love “Hold me,” you will be getting what you deserve if the person declines to hold you and mocks you instead.

In the case of Padme’s line, though, the situation is even more dire. For not only is she telling Anakin to hold her, but she is demanding he hold her in a particular fashion. What’s worse, she’s not even telling him how, exactly, he is supposed to do it. Instead, she has phrased her declaration in a way that suggests he should already know. She has embedded a mini-quiz into it, and if this is real life, his mind is thrust into a frenzy of thought:

“How did I hold her by the lake on Naboo? Didn’t I hold her the way I usually hold her? What did I do that time that was special? Am I supposed to remember this? Have we discussed this before? Think, Anakin! Use the Force!”

Then he tentatively puts his arms around her, doing essentially what he always does and hoping this is right. Then they have this exchange:

PADME: No! Like you did by the LAKE on NABOO!
ANAKIN: Sorry! (readjusts)
PADME: No, your arm was like this! (positions it)
ANAKIN: Ah, right, of course. (fakes it)
PADME: NO! Your other hand was over HERE!
ANAKIN: I’m sorry! I–
PADME: Just forget it! You’ve ruined it!
ANAKIN: (chokes her with the Force)

But I digress. In the movie, Anakin doesn’t reply at all. He just holds her, and then the scene ends. But the stench of that line lingers. “Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo? So long ago when there was nothing but our LOVE?!” A line that bad shouldn’t have even stuck to the tape. When they played back the audio, they should have heard only static, or perhaps the voice of Satan.

I also liked this exchange, between Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi:

ANAKIN: If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!
OBI-WAN: Only a Sith deals in absolutes!

But isn’t THAT an absolute, saying that only a Sith deals in absolutes? I’m just sayin’.

Anyway, in this case, it’s easy to figure out how the final version of the dialogue turned out so corny. George Lucas wrote it, and then he directed the movie, too, so there was no one to serve as editor or revisionist. And since he films everything in studios nowadays, with actors standing against green screens and the background added in post-production, his contact with other humans is limited.

Besides, how is anyone going to make suggestions? He’s GEORGE FREAKIN’ LUCAS! I think he knows he writes bad dialogue, and I think he doesn’t care. He knows how his fans punish him when one of his movies disappoints them: They only watch it 10 times in the theater instead of 20. I guess if I could be certain that writing lame dialogue would earn me a billion dollars, I’d probably do it, too. In fact, if you know of such an opportunity, please send me the details.

When I move to Portland next month, I will have lived in Salt Lake City for almost exactly a year. Part of me wants to stay longer because I like it here, but part of me has decided I’m ready to move on. As is true of most men, my parts seldom agree on which is the best course of action.

Maybe it’s just in comparison to the nine previous years I spent in Utah County, but I love The SLC. And yet there is Portland, calling to me, beckoning me, offering me a toke on its marijuana cigarette (which I will decline). Born and raised in California, I never intended to live in Utah for 10 years; it happened accidentally, like knocking over a drink or stubbing your toe. “Whoops!” I said one morning not long ago. “I’ve lived in Utah for a decade!” And so now it’s time to go someplace else.

I’ll miss this place, though. Make fun of it if you will — I know I will — but Salt Lake has its share of nice, cool, awesome and/or rad things. Herewith, some of the things I will miss most about The SLC and Utah in general.

– The flautas at Cafe Pierpont. Chunks of chicken, sour cream and cheese, all rolled up in a giant flour tortilla and deep fried — and you get two of them! One to eat there, and one to eat at home later that night when you’re watching Letterman! I love these flautas so much, more than anything I’ve had at any other local restaurant. They are not gourmet (though I do applaud Pierpont’s use of chicken chunks, rather than shredded chicken), nor are they fancy, nor are they expensive. But they are deep fried, and that goes a long way in my book. If our repressive government would allow it, I would marry the flautas and we would live happily ever after as man and flautas.

– The quaint mispronunciation of basic English words. Who knew “sale” and “sell” were homophones? Not me, not until I moved to Utah.

– Fry sauce, obviously.

– The City Library. Yes, its huge supply of books, but also its modernity, its beauty, its location (within walking distance of my apartment and right across the street from a Burger King) and its bank of Internet-enabled computers that you can use even if you don’t have a library card. At last, homeless people have a place to check their e-mail!

– The way people in Utah Valley talk about The SLC like it’s a dangerous den of sin. The SLC’s crime rates and liberalism are higher than Utah Valley, yes, but they’re still lower than those of most large cities. And yet Utah Valleyans talk about it like it’s Beirut or Amsterdam. (In Portland, they talk about The SLC like it’s Provo.)

– Coffee Garden at 9th & 9th. I don’t drink coffee, and I don’t like hippies — two facts that make my move to Portland questionable, I know — but I love Coffee Garden. It’s big enough that I don’t feel bad occupying a spot for a couple hours at a time as I write, read, and sip hot chocolate, and the employees seem legitimately friendly and cool, unlike the jerks at some coffeehouses, who seem to be TRYING to be friendly and cool. One downside: Coffee Garden serves pastries and treats, but no coffee cake. Perhaps this is just as well, for if coffee cake were readily available to me, I would probably enter into an unwholesome three-way marriage with it and flautas.

Portland will have replacements for some of these, but it won’t match the overall SLC experience. I mean, what do they dip their fries in up there? Beer?

When I was about 4, my cousin Stephen and I were playing at my house when we got into some kind of mischief and were sent to my room. While we were waiting for my dad to come pronounce our punishment, Stephen and I put on some old clothes we found in the closet as a means of disguising ourselves, figuring my dad wouldn’t recognize us when he came in and we could tell him Eric and Stephen had escaped through the window.

You chuckle at this story and think, “Man, kids sure are stupid.” And that is my defense: I was 4. I was not, for example, a 32-year-old woman who faked being kidnapped in order to avoid her own wedding.

Part of the uproar regarding this story is how big a deal the news media have made of it, and while I am loath to add to the media overkill, at the same time, I don’t care. You see my dilemma.

Jennifer Wilbanks disappeared near her Duluth, Ga., home on April 26, days before her lavish wedding to John Mason was to be held. John called the police to report that Jennifer had not returned from her evening jog, and the police assumed what everyone always assumes when a husband or fiancé reports his partner missing: that he had murdered her.

This turned out not to be the case, however, and Jennifer was presumed kidnapped. Everyone figured it wasn’t just cold feet, because she had left behind her keys, money, identification and engagement ring, four items that a person with cold feet generally carries with her, as the FBI’s Cold Feet Division will tell you.

As is usually the case when a thin upper- or middle-class white woman goes missing, the nation sprang into action. Was there foul play at hand? Mischief? Tomfoolery? Shenanigans? For three days, our hearts and minds were captivated by what CNN called The Story of the Bug-Eyed Georgia Woman Who Nobody Knows Where She Is.

On the fourth day, Jennifer contacted police in Albuquerque, telling them she had escaped her abductors. She wove a fanciful tale of two kidnappers, one Hispanic male with rotten teeth and one chubby white female, who had taken her from Georgia to New Mexico and had sexually assaulted her. But whoops! After only an hour of questioning, Jennifer caved like a French soldier and admitted the abductors did not exist, which probably explains how she escaped them so easily. It turns out she had simply fled Georgia, and not for the reasons you would expect someone to flee Georgia — the oppressive humidity, the racist underpinnings, the pervasive stench of peaches — but because she was overwhelmed by the upcoming wedding.

As you know from watching the parts of “Gone with the Wind” that happened when you weren’t asleep, those Southerners know how to throw a gala. The Mason/Wilbanks wedding was to include 14 bridesmaids and a like number of groomsmen, with a reception for 600 guests planned at the snooty Atlanta Athletic Club. (I’ve never understood how these private clubs manage to be snobbish AND include the word “Athletic” in their names, but there you go.) They had even hired a fey, genteel Kevin Spacey to show up and say catty things, but then it turned out that was in “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” not real life.

Here is where I tell you what you already know, which is that many people spend way too much money on their weddings. It’s no wonder some brides and grooms become overwhelmed, with so much riding on it. The event itself lasts only a few minutes, with the reception stretching it to only a few hours, yet people spend thousands of dollars on it. Does all the lavishness somehow strengthen the couple’s love? Is the reasoning that if we blow $10,000 on it, then maybe we won’t be so quick to get divorced two years down the road? Sometimes I think I don’t understand the desire for a gigantic, expensive wedding because I’ve never been married. But then I think no, that can’t be it. I’ve never eaten glass, either, but I still know it’s a stupid idea.

So Jennifer came home, postponed the wedding (but did not cancel it, and neither did her fiancé), and CNN went back to filling your TV screen with logos, crawling news tickers, and Aaron Brown. But now the city of Duluth, Ga., is faced with a question: Do they charge Jennifer with a crime? She did lie to police, but not for very long. Was it her fault that a nationwide manhunt was initiated to search for her? These are questions Duluth must answer. Helpfully, hundreds of people have e-mailed Duluth officials with suggestions, as reported by The Smoking Gun. Here is one of my favorites, from one Randy McDonald, who was appalled that the city was considering filing charges against the runaway bride:

“Hey You inbreeds The bride dident start the man hunt His family did If any one should go to jail it should be him .In the United States a adult should be able to go anywere they chose with out fear of a FBI manhunt . There was no evidance of a crime but yet you fools created one and are now going to try and hold her responsable for your overreaction? The way you folks think it is no doubt the south will never rise agien .”

As usual, it is an undereducated Southerner who is immune to irony who has shown us the way. All Jennifer is guilty of, when you get right down to it, is being terrified of her own super-sized wedding and wanting to disappear for a while. Who among us hasn’t sought to flee responsibility on occasion? If taking a bus to Albuquerque means getting a little peace of mind, then I say go for it. Just be sure to take your engagement ring with you so men will know you’re not available, you tease, you.

The first commercial entertainment broadcast on television was “Uncle Jim’s Question Bee,” aired at 9:15 p.m. on July 1, 1941. The moment it hit the airwaves, television executives at other stations began thinking: How can we rip this off? Thirty minutes later, 78 other game shows were on the air.

OK, I have exaggerated the last point, to the extent that it is an outright lie. But the fact is, TV has been copying itself for as long as there has been TV. You see it every time there is a new hit show. In 1994, “Friends” became a success and suddenly everyone was making shows about 20-somethings who sit around and are friends. In 1999, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” was ABC’s cash cow, and next thing you knew there were a million prime-time game shows on the air in which five minutes of question-asking were stretched out to an hour. “Gilligan’s Island” premiered on CBS in 1964, and 40 years later, here comes “Lost.”

And we have not seen the last of it. Through my inside sources, I have compiled the following run-down of shows currently in production that are clearly rip-offs of other networks’ hits. Prepare to be alarmed at how low the level of creativity in Hollywood has sunk.

Animal Planet’s “Serengeti Idol.” Wild animals compete to see who really is the king of the jungle. Each week a different animal is eliminated by audience voting, except in this case “eliminated” means “eaten” and “audience voting” means “hyenas.” Judges are a Labrador, a seal and Simon Cowell.

Fox’s “The CSImpsons.” An animated dysfunctional family investigates gory crime scenes and theorizes how the incidents occurred, despite having only four fingers on each hand.

MTV’s “4.” A hot, shirtless guy has to save the world in only four minutes, with each one-minute episode occupying one minute of real time. Adapted for MTV audiences because 24 one-hour episodes are too much for an MTV viewer’s attention span.

Fox News Channel’s “Everybody Loves Reagan.” FNC makes its first foray into scripted comedy (as opposed to the unscripted kind provided by Bill O’Reilly) with this sitcom about a hapless conservative president whom everybody loves, including liberal Democrats, feminists, homosexuals and minorities. EVERYBODY!

Discovery’s “Desperate Hutwives.” Set on the desert plains of Western Africa, “Desperate Hutwives” follows the steamy misadventures of the women in the N’gtu tribe. One is having an affair with the boy who clears away the monkey carcasses; another has trouble controlling her 18 children; yet another was recently killed by jackals yet continues to provide the series with annoying, pun-filled narration.

UPN’s “Black Eye for the White Guy.” A team of black experts (including Mo’nique, Li’l Kim and Will Smith) school hapless white men on how to be more black and therefore more with-it. Each team member has an area of expertise, including music/dancing, slang/mispronunciation, and making fun of white people.

HBO’s “Sur@#&$or.” Sixteen contestants are put on an island and made to fend for themselves. The only ways to survive: swear constantly, have promiscuous sex, run around naked, and murder your enemies. It’s all wrapped up in only six episodes, and the next season doesn’t begin until three years later. But hey, no commercials!

Game Show Network’s “Match Game: Special Victims Unit” Contestants try to match answers to fill-in-the-blank excerpts from sex-related police reports with a panel of C-list celebrities. For example: “The witness said she knew the man was a flasher because she could see his BLANK.” (Winning answer: “mother-in-law.”)

When someone found a finger in the chili at Wendy’s, the world was shocked. “Someone bought chili at Wendy’s?” the world asked. “Really? Huh.”

It was no urban legend, like the old myths about someone finding a deep-fried rat in a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, or a nest of spiders in a Taco Bell burrito, or ground beef in a Big Mac. This really happened!

The question, of course, was WHOSE FINGER IS IT? Or maybe I should say, also with the caps-lock on, WHOSE FINGER WAS IT?, for I believe once you have deposited a fingertip in a vat of chili, you have relinquished your ownership of it. But verb tenses aside, the finger had to have come from someone. None of the Wendy’s employees were missing digits — lucky this occurred in San Jose, Calif., and not, say, Alabama, where doubtless several people present would have been missing at least one. The woman herself had all 10 of hers. So whence came the finger?

That remains a mystery, but in the meantime, the woman who claimed to have found it in her chili, 39-year-old Anna Ayala, has been arrested on a charge of “felony attempted grand theft.” Turns out she didn’t “find” the finger in her chili. She brought it with her from home (presumably; maybe she just found it on the floor at Wendy’s) and pretended to discover it in her food.

These are not the actions of a normal person, obviously, but it does make sense in today’s climate of lawsuits and settlements. There’s no question: If you were to ACTUALLY find a severed finger in your chili at Wendy’s, Wendy’s would eventually pay you millions of dollars, even though the discovery of body parts in one’s food causes no actual harm to the discoverer. So you can see Anna Ayala’s reasoning.

What she didn’t count on was modern technology revealing her as a fraud. News accounts indicate that tests were performed on the finger that concluded it had not been cooked — meaning it had not come from the chili supplier and would have to have been introduced into the chili at the store AFTER the cooking process. And since no one at the Wendy’s where it took place was missing a finger, that meant it could only have happened after it was served to Ayala.

So apparently there are tests you can do to determine whether something has been cooked? Do people study this in college? How often does it come up, one person insisting an item has been cooked and another person claiming it is still raw? It sounds like a game Letterman would play on his show: “Has This Been Cooked?”

But I digress. Ayala turns out to have a rather litigious history. Police say she and her children have been involved in 13 civil cases in California and Nevada. Ayala says she once successfully sued El Pollo Loco for $30,000 after her daughter got food poisoning there, though El Pollo Loco says they haven’t paid her anything. Nor should they. I say you eat at a place called The Crazy Chicken, you take your chances.

Wendy’s estimates it has lost $2.5 million in business because of negative publicity resulting from Ayala’s claim, but I suspect some of this lost business is because they precipitously increased the price of a junior bacon cheeseburger from 99 cents to $1.29. (What, did junior bacon suddenly become more expensive?)

Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney called Wendy’s the victim of a scam. “We are urging Americans to go back to Wendy’s and enjoy a safe meal,” she said in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Indeed. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if we do NOT go to Wendy’s and enjoy a safe, finger-free meal, the terrorists have won. In a similar vein, Wendy’s spokesman Joseph Desmond said, “Please come back to Wendy’s, because we do serve wonderful hamburgers, shakes and everything else” — even though Wendy’s does NOT have shakes, wonderful or otherwise. A Frosty is not a shake, Mr. Desmond. A Frosty is delicious, and it is chocolate, but it is not a shake. It is a Frosty.

But still I wonder where Anna Ayala got the finger. And did she find it somewhere and then decide to use it to her advantage at Wendy’s, or did she hatch the Wendy’s scheme first and then set out to find a finger? Either way, she is one of the many people I’m glad I don’t know, although I suppose she would be useful for getting free stuff at restaurants, particularly — and you knew this was coming, and I can only apologize for it in advance — finger food.

By now you have heard the results of the recent voting: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is the new pope. He was chosen by an enclave of cardinals (the religious leaders, not the birds), who managed to elect him decisively in only two days. The annoying part was how Ryan Seacrest stalled for an entire hour before finally announcing it.

Cardinal Ratzinger has chosen as his papal name Benedict XVI. We all remember Benedict XV, of course, the man for whom a popular egg dish was named: “Eggs XV.”

But I kid the pope and his amusing name! In America, “Benedict” makes people think of Benedict Arnold, the infamous Revolutionary War traitor. Outside of the U.S., the name doesn’t have any connotation other than its literal Latin meaning, which is “infamous traitor.”

But I continue to kid the pope! He is the first German pope since either 1523 or 1057, depending on whether you consider Adrian VI (1459-1523), who was technically both Dutch and German but who lived in what is now The Netherlands, to have been German. I have arbitrarily decided that he was not German, and thus Benedict XVI is the first German pope since 1057. Though some view the Germans as a stern, humorless people who make terrible food, let us not forget that they also started World War II.

But let us also not forget that Cardinal Ratzinger has proved himself to be an able and knowledgeable leader in the Catholic church. Those of us who aren’t Catholic don’t really care all that much who the pope is, but it’s good to know the church is being led by an intelligent, faithful man who stands up for what he believes, even if you think some of what he believes is silly. (Some of what all of us believe is silly, if you get right down to it.)

TIP: Do not confuse Joseph Ratzinger, who is the new pope, with John Ratzenberger, who played Cliff on “Cheers.”

Not the new pope

New pope

The process has been fascinating. With the rest of the world, I watched as Pope John Paul II died slowly over the course of several days, reported in great detail by the world’s media outlets, who issued a play-by-play of the pontiff’s failing organs and faculties the way you might call a square dance or a hog auction. The media had not paid such morbidly close attention to a person’s death since, well, a week earlier, when it was Terri Schiavo.

When the pope did pass away, certain protocol had to be followed to keep with tradition, as well as with the pope’s own wishes. His few earthly possessions were given away, his last will and testament read, his gym membership canceled. Hundreds of thousands of people converged on Rome to pay their last respects and to be fleeced by tourist traps.

And then the show REALLY began. Newspapers were suddenly full of graphics explaining to non-Catholics — and to Catholics who had simply forgotten in the 26 years since it was last relevant — how a pope is chosen. It works like this:

– First there is a designated period of 15 to 20 days during which there is no pope. This seems like it would be risky because it leaves the church open to attack by predators, but I guess the church knows what it’s doing.

– Then the college of cardinals meets in what’s called a “conclave” to choose a successor. The race is technically open to any baptized male member of the Catholic church, which means this is one more election that John Kerry lost.

– The cardinals are locked in the Sistine Chapel — well, I guess everyone else is locked OUT, as opposed to the cardinals being locked IN — to discuss who the new pope should be. They vote every morning and afternoon until someone gets a two-thirds majority, for up to 30 votes. After the 30th vote, only a simple majority is required. If no one gets a simple majority, then they check their math, because that’s impossible.

– After each vote, the ballots are burned. Special chemicals are added to alter the color of the smoke that emerges from the chimney: black smoke means the vote was inconclusive; white smoke means a new pope has been chosen; red smoke means the cardinals were lighting fireworks, the little scamps.

Benedict XVI has big shoes to fill, not to mention the large, pointy hat. John Paul II was beloved the world over for his goodness, and the Catholic church has had its share of troubles in recent years. Will Benedict be up to the challenge? I don’t know. I’m just glad the election is over and everyone can take down their campaign signs.

The Utah Symphony & Opera is in financial trouble, and though no one is pointing fingers, the fact is, it’s your fault.

You see, both the symphony and the opera — which combined in 2002 into one entity — rely on what’s called an “audience” to make money. They sell what are known as “tickets” to patrons who then sit in chairs and listen to and/or watch the performances. The company gets donations and grants, too, but they still depend on those elusive “audiences” for a large portion of their income.

Attendance has been down lately, and no one is sure why. Some say producing lesser-known 20th-century operas such as “Jenufa,” which is full of music yet contains not a single hummable tune or catchy theme, and which features a woman being slashed in the face with a knife, and which isn’t in one of the acceptable opera languages (French, Italian or German) but in Czech, scares audiences away. Others say advertising and promotions have not been up to par, that even conductor Keith Lockhart’s appearance fully nude in Playgirl magazine failed to entice new audience members.

But I think the real problem is not the material, or the way it’s promoted, but the simple fact that for the most part, PEOPLE DON’T GO TO THE SYMPHONY OR THE OPERA. Oh, sure, some do. Some even go often. But MOST people don’t see more than one or two operas in their entire lives, and attend the symphony only slightly more often.

When you’re trying to convince someone that a particular city is nice, it’s always the artsy things you mention. “My heavens, Salt Lake is a fine city!” you’d say. “It has some great museums, and a world-class symphony!” And it’s true, we have those things, but do you ever go to them? No. (Neither do I, but we’re talking about you here, not me.) Instead, those things languish on the outskirts of profitability, kept alive by generous donations and by the few people who actually patronize them.

The thing is, I’m not sure we really deserve fine art anyway. Last month US&O produced Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” an opera that has the added difficulty of being based on a Shakespeare play. Not to suggest that certain Utahns are yokels who put on their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes and spray their hair up real high when it’s time to go to the ahpruh, but there were some embarrassing specimens at the performance I attended. For example, after some reveling had taken place in the fairy-inhabited woods onstage, the man behind me remarked to his female companion, in a “whisper” loud enough for all around him to hear, “It looks like a fraternity house the morning after a party.”

Now, leaving aside the idiocy of pointing out that a scene depicting the aftermath of a party looks, in fact, like the aftermath of a party, what happened to this man that made him think it was OK to talk during the opera? A blow to the head? A viral infection during infancy? Or was he just from Midvale? (I know we usually restrict our comments about hicks and yahoos to Utah County-ites, but let’s face it, there are many such rubes among us even here in the bustling metropolis of Salt Lake.)

The man made other comments over the course of the show, too, and I hope he is reading this so that he will know what a jackass he is. That’s assuming he even has the class to read an artsy publication such as this, which I should point out is kept alive by generous donations from readers like you.

For as hectic as American life is supposed to be, we grownups sure spend a lot of time loitering. Look at what has happened to bookstores. All the major ones now have cafes and comfortable reading chairs, so that customers can lounge around like unemployed layabouts without having to actually, you know, buy anything. Which makes them not customers at all, really, but bums. They used to chase you out of places for using the merchandise without buying it, and now they encourage it. Barnes & Noble has become less a bookstore and more a homeless shelter for people with homes.

And coffeeshops. I don’t even know how coffeeshops stay in business, particularly when you consider their appeal to young bohemians, who, by definition, don’t have any money. You buy a $2 cup of something, and then you sit there for 11 hours, sending text messages to friends, reading semi-legible underground newspapers, and posting notices regarding your band’s need for a drummer. How does the place make any money from that?

Many of these coffeehouses now have “wi-fi” connections, too, which means you can bring your laptop computer and go online — thus encouraging people to spend even MORE time there, not buying anything. The only thing I can guess is that coffeeshops are run by the same people they cater to (i.e., hippies), and that making money is therefore not a priority.

(Some cities are considering establishing wi-fi connections everywhere, so that you can literally go any place within the city limits and have Internet access on your laptop. All sensible people realize that within 24 hours of any city implementing this plan, there will be 100,000 car accidents caused by people using the Internet while driving, possibly just so they can e-mail their friends to tell them they’re e-mailing them and driving at the same time. I’M JUST SAYIN’.)

Despite my distaste for both coffee and hippies, I have become a coffeeshop habitue in recent months. The problem was that I found it hard to get any work done at home because of all the distractions: the Internet, the e-mail, the TiVo, the music, the woman in the apartment downstairs who communicates only by yelling. I thought that if I took my notes and my laptop to a coffeeshop, I could get some work done unhindered.

Turns out I was right for once. Though I’ve sampled a few others, I’ve found Coffee Garden, at Salt Lake City’s charming 9th & 9th district, to be the best place for me. They have many small, round tables that are perfect for parties of one, and the place is big enough, with a lot of seating, that I don’t feel guilty occupying space for a few hours at a time when all I’ve bought is a hot chocolate and maybe a pastry. Some places are so tiny that you feel obligated to buy a ton of stuff to justify sitting there. (I once ate at a restaurant in New York where there were literally only nine tables. To assuage my conscience, I had to buy a full meal, when my original plan had been simply to a) have an appetizer and b) run out on the check.)

I like Coffee Garden very much. The staff is friendly and personable, though I did notice a sharp increase in that when I began purchasing things from them. They offer wi-fi Internet, but you have to pay for it — which means I don’t have it, which is good, because you’ll recall the Internet was one of the distractions of home that I sought to escape. Someday the Internet will be installed in our bodies and we won’t be able to escape it anywhere, but that day is not today (Monday).

I do have issues with all the hippies, of course. Despite its new Starbucks-fueled prominence in mainstream American society, the coffeeshop is essentially still the second home to the North American hippie (slackerus knowitallus cannibus). Salt Lake City has a university and a community college, too, which naturally increases the number of hippies roaming the streets. I do not enjoy overhearing their conversations when I am trying to write, although having a laptop in front of me and being a fairly adept transcriptionist does enable me to take down their sayings without their even realizing they’re being recorded. For example, I have just listened to two scruffy women in their 30s say these things to each other:

FIRST SCRUFFY WOMAN: Oh, you HAVE to go to Burning Man with us this year! We always build this giant tent and everyone comes to listen to David play the guitar.
SECOND SCRUFFY WOMAN: Yeah, I need to go sometime, just to get out of the city, you know?

“The city” she refers to is Salt Lake, a relaxed metropolis with a population around 200,000, nestled in the mountains, trees lining every street. But she said “the city” like she’s being caught in gang crossfire every day on her way to work at the porn factory.

Like most coffeeshops, there is a tip jar on the counter at Coffee Garden. Now, I admire the chutzpah involved, but I reject the idea that simply taping a piece of paper that says “TIPS” to a jar and putting it on a counter means that you deserve tips. Obviously it didn’t happen out of necessity. People weren’t clamoring for it, crying out, “We want to tip you people, but we have no place to put the money!!” Clearly it was the other way around. The coffeeshops started putting out the jar, and now all of a sudden OF COURSE you’re supposed to tip them, like it’s been a tradition in American society for decades to include a gratuity when someone pours a specified, regulated amount of coffee into a cup for you.

But hippies and mandatory gratuities aside, coffeeshops are fine for relaxing, writing, reading or lounging. In all the hustle, not to mention bustle, of the modern world, it’s nice to know there are places we can go to “get away from it all.” Someplace besides home, church or nature, I mean. Someplace more hip.