I'm closing in on finishing Season Four of 24, and I can definitely tell that it is affecting me.
I was driving to school (back when I was actually teaching - woooo for summer!), and I saw this white van on the side of the road. It was one of those work vans with no side windows - the kind bad guys on 24 are forever using. It pulled on to the road just after I passed by. Oh my word! My hand was practically on my phone before I realized that the 911 call would be really strange. "Um, ya, there's a white van on the side of the road. Only it just pulled onto the road again. GET OUT HERE AS FAST AS YOU CAN! Don't you know it could be housing kidnapped government officials or endangered secret agents or nuclear weapons?!" I settled down, laughed at myself, and continued on my way to school.
Later on I was driving home from school and passed a car with all of its windows down, and someone's sleeves flapping in the wind out of the back seat. OY VAY! Gunmen on the highway! I could practically see the sniper rifle emerging from that back seat and leveled at my head, and I could almost feel the bullets whizzing by me. It's a dangerous commute out there, people! I really need to consider some bulletproof glass.
Of course, then there are the positive, if also somewhat odd, side-affects, like the grin that appears on my face all of a sudden in the grocery store parking lot, as I recall Tony behind that pistol at the crucial moment, or the great hoots of joy I want to break into when I think of Chloe getting that bad guy. Wheeee!
And I think of how safe I feel when I remember Jack Bauer is on the job... until I remember that he isn't. But I console myself by thinking that Jack Bauer-ESQUE people are on the job.
The craziest thing of all of this is that as totally hooked as I get on 24, I haven't watched an episode in over a week! And I only have one and a half left until I finish the season! Oy vay! I've been so ridiculously busy that the nuclear bomb that is whizzing toward some unsuspecting US city is just sitting there in mid-air waiting for me to get back so we can resolve this thing. Phew!
I'm hoping that tonight I'll finally be able to see Jack Bauer save the world yet again. Hurrah!
7 comments:
:-D
I haven't seen Season 4, but I would hazard a guess that the unsuspecting city is....LA? I've noticed that that is generally the city 24 terrorists are most eager to take down. :)
I can sometimes tell where 24 has effected me, too. For instance, I was driving on I-95N last night and a Cadillac passed me at 100 mph at least. My first thought was to wonder whether it was a senator or a CTU agent.
I find myself noticing obscure, weird, suspicious things too when I'm out and about- but that's partly because I'm already paranoid. But I can definitely tell that it's worse after recently watching an episode of said show.
And one time I almost rearended someone in traffic because I was distracted by the sight of one of those white, windowless vans pulling into a bank parking lot after hours..."Sorry I rear-ended you, folks; I was just trying to be Jackie Bauer..."
Oooh! I thought of something else. I keep telling people I'm "20 minutes out" instead of "20 minutes away." Hee hee hee.
Wow, now I know why I've been avoiding 24.
I know you've been uber-busy but please...NEW POST! NEW POST! NEW POST!
Your example is one of the evidences that van drivers are really 'folk devils'. I still can't imagine how they dare to behave themselves on a road so madly.It seems that man and van are nightmare on roads. It is true that a van man is now most often viewed as a mobile thug – a dangerous threat to the decent, right-thinking, motoring majority.
Happy that you did not come to harm.
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