She's actually fine now (thanks for asking), but the day was a bit long. She was pretty low-energy, as you would imagine, and we ended up cuddled on the couch, watching the idiot box. Nothing wrong with that, exactly, since she was just too bedraggled after a sleepless night to focus on arts & crafts or Monopoly. The problem was with the specific shows we ended up watching. After some random channel-flicking, we ended up on the Game Show Network. No, really! See, they had on some Deal Or No Deal reruns, and she knows that game because she's played the arcade version. It caught her eye, and she got hooked in, big time.
She kept asking me, "Mommy, what would you do? Would you take the $65,000 or would you tell the banker no deal and try to get the million?" "OK, now he's offering $98,000. Would you take that or not?" I soon saw how badly she was jonesing for a big money win. No matter what the damn banker was offering, it JUST WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH.
Once in a while, as the cases and remaining dollar amounts were eliminated, they'd put up some stats on the screen, explaining what the odds were that the contestant would win a certain prize. But the concept of probability had no meaning to her. If it said on the screen that there was an 83% chance that the contestant would only have a maximum of $75 in their chosen case, my daughter was unmoved. "Yeah, but there's still, like, almost a 20% chance that the case has the million dollars in it, right? So she should keep going, right?" I swear to God, I hope she never goes to Vegas when she grows up. She'll lose everything she owns and end up moving back home.
By the last few minutes of the show, the suspense was getting to her, and she was practically pleading with the contestant through some couch-to-TV studio communication portal that only children can use. "No Deal! Tell him no deal! You've got that million in your case, I just KNOW it!" Eventually the woman took home $165,000 and found out that her case had only been worth $75. That was a tremendously anti-climactic moment for my kid, and she was pretty bummed for a bit there.
But then, the next show came on. It was one I'd never seen or heard of, called Catch 21, and it looked lame. It was hosted by the actor who used to play Carlton on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", for one thing, and though it was great to see he still had a job and didn't have to resort to selling crack to make ends meet, it really seemed sad to see him there. And to top off the lameness sundae, the contestants on this "very special celebrity edition" of Catch 21 were all former contestants on "The Biggest Loser". It was a virtual has-been-apalooza. Not what I wanted to watch, at all. But for whatever reason, my kid was enthralled all over again by the spectacle of people on TV having the infinitesimal chance to win a whole shitload of cash.
I was kinda puzzled, and then I got a sudden mental flashback of my own childhood sick days. Man, I used to love spending my sick days watching "The Price is Right". Loved the games, loved Bob Barker, loved the Showcase Showdown. And, yes, I was rooting for the contestants to win it all. It was a big freaking treat for me when I happened to be home on a day when somebody won the trip to Hawaii, the washer/dryer combo, AND the year's supply of Turtle Wax and Rice-a-Roni.
It's pretty funny that my daughter has the same sort of tendencies as I did when I was her age. But sick days seem to turn kids into little game show freaks, and they do want to see the big money payoff. Greed, as they say, is good. At least it is when you are emotionally invested in the economic advancement of a random dental hygienist from New Jersey, or some person who lost 125 pounds on a network reality show. I can't explain it this phenomenon. All I know is, the next time my kid catches a virus, I hope she'll sleep through the day, because if I have to watch poor old Carlton pretending to be happy about hosting a lame game show , I'll get sick too.
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