It’d Be Funny If It Weren't

From tcu.edu

The absolute funniest Candid Camera episode I ever saw was The One Millionth Customer.  The lady was set up at a supermarket to be the millionth customer.  As customer 998 won an all-expenses paid trip throughout the United States and #999 won a world tour, the woman set up to be the millionth customer was ecstatic . . . until she was told her prize – wait for it – a walking tour of the sister store in Newark, New Jersey!

Boy, was she mad.  She said a lot of bleeped words – the only one you were allowed to hear as a home viewer was “unfair”, followed by a lot more bleeping.

Then, of course, affable Alan Funt came out to tell her she was on Candid Camera.  But the reveal didn’t stop her even for a nanosecond.  Even when she found out it was a joke, she was still mad!

She was the millionth customer!  (even though there was no millionth customer)

She should have received the best prize, not the other two (who weren’t receiving anything at all, since it was all a joke).

She was cheated!

It just wasn’t fair!

The sense of disappointed entitlement was so staggeringly ridiculous that it became funny - funnier even than the original joke.  The thing that still gets me is that the woman wasn’t mad that she was the butt of the joke; she was mad because it was unfair.

It occurs to me that in these United States, too often we act like the sham millionth customer, disappointed in the outcome of a contest that doesn’t exist . . . demanding our fair share of a pie that isn’t there . . . treating our expectations as reality and crying like children when they’re not met.

I would have more respect for Democrats if they stopped promising me the moon.

I would have more respect for Republicans if they stopped telling me who took the moon away from me.

I would have more respect for us as a nation if we voted for the candidate who promised to give the most to someone else – someone that needed the ‘it’ more than we do.

I would have more respect for myself if I didn’t act like that woman at the supermarket every time someone disappointed my expectations. . . if I didn’t scream, if only in my mind, It just isn’t fair! . . . if I thought more about what’s in it for you and less about what’s in it for me.

Really, I would.