It is a universally acknowledged truth that if you wanna feel dumb, you watch Jeopardy!, and if you wanna feel smart you watch Wheel of Fortune. And if you caught last night’s episode of Wheel of Fortune, the contestants probably made you feel like the secret lovechild of Stephen Hawking and Marie Curie (they fucked in their time machine).
The answer to one of the puzzles was the phrase “Another feather in your cap,” and there were only a few letters missing. But contestants Laura Machado and Christopher Coleman were completely stumped. Laura made ridiculous guesses like “feather in your hat,” “feather in your lap,” and “feather in your map.” The third contestant, Thomas Lipscomb, landed on “Bankrupt” and “Lose A Turn” on his spins. On his third try, he finally landed on $500, guessed the letter C, and successfully solved the puzzle. But, by then, the contestants had made history: eight failed turns in the span of two minutes.
After Thomas solved the puzzle, host Pat Sajak joked, “Anyway, it’s fine. That round is over. But it was fun, in a sort of… perverse way.” Patty, you dirty dog! Here’s the clip, which obviously went viral immediately:
I mean, in some ways I can empathize. If you don’t know an idiom, you don’t know an idiom. Up until recently, I thought the phrase was “play it by year,” not “play it by ear” (like, you’d just wait and see what happens as time goes by). And it’s not like “a feather in your cap” is a hip, modern phrase. It’s a saying that’s been around even longer than Vanna White. So, since the dawn of time.
Pic: YouTube