What? Who's "Matthew Mee-mot?"

So, my lifelong curse was broken today! I no longer have a negative luck anomaly. What in the world am I talking about? Well, for as long as I can remember, I cannot win any form of luck related contest! I don’t get raffle prizes, I don’t win awards at parties, and I just am generally all-around unlucky! So with this mindset, Renee and I decided to attend “The Price is Right” as the first part of our vacation in California. I even mentioned to Renee that she has fantastic luck, and that she should be prepared to work out prices in her head so she could win.
Therefore, it was with absolute apathy towards winning anything that we set out to stand in line, meet over a hundred new people in our same position, and procure seats in the studio for a 1:00 PM showing of The Price is Right. We had the little interview before going in to the studio from which all the contestants are selected, and I got the distinct impression that MIT students don’t often come to the price is right. Right there in the interview, the guy asked me what I did, and when I told him, he took 2 steps back, started flailing his arms, and said “WOAH!!!!! How do YOU have time to watch The Price is Right?” I mentioned that I didn’t have to go to every class, to which he responded “Ohh… so you’re going to be a BAD nuclear engineer.” Nice. I then told him I’d be a great one, but who would notice if I wasn’t anyway. I laughed, but didn’t think any more about it. Certainly being a “bad” nuke-engineer isn’t earning brownie points.
The studio was awesome. Completely noisey, to the point where we couldn’t hear anything, and I got to set over by Renee towards the front. Renee and I didn’t have clever T-shirts, just a maroon shirt and an MIT shirt, so again, no expectations.
Things took a dramatic turn partway through the show, however, when the announcer said “Matthew Mee-mot, come on down.” I looked around trying to figure out who had such a goofy name when I realized that it was ME!!!!!!! How’s that for bizarre! Even now, it doesn’t quite seem real, but it was so dang fun. Drew had a heyday during commercial breaks commenting on and making jokes about my intelligence, and we all laughed quite a bit. Renee and I learned that in real life, the models are not drop-dead gorgeous, like the appear on TV (she commented that had larger thighs than it looks like on TV, and I noticed that under the makeup was some not so pretty faces – makeup and camera editing does wonders…) and she finally confessed that I was right…. She’s quite pretty, or at least, she lets ME say that without arguing now. (that alone makes it worth it, that my wife realizes she’s stinking gorgeous without plastic surgery… well, at least not much, but that’s a different story. :) ) Everyone had a hard time believing that I studied nuclear engineering, and made frequent googily-eyed looks of awe and unbeleive. In fact a couple of confused girls yelled that I should marry them, and I, probably appearing unnecessarily grumpy and annoyed, had to visibly show off my already-present wedding ring and my beautiful wife. Plus, Drew Carey asked me what the square root of pi was. Nice, Drew… funny.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t take any pictures, and I’m not allowed to talk about the show at all, but if any of you are interested in checking things out, the show will air 9:00 AM MDT on CBS on June 24th, 2008. So, feel free to watch, but don’t get too many hopes up… I’m a nuclear engineer, not a consumer goods specialist!