Where the Hell's My Hot Sauce?

The question was, Where the hell is my hot sauce? As with so many little mysteries in my life, the answer is, I’m retarded.

Situated neatly on my coffee table was a tray of grocery-store sushi, a slim bottle of Louisiana hot sauce, and a pirated DVD of Airwolf: Season One. As I settled into my chair, lifted the bottle and suspended it above the tray of clammy rolls, a knock came at my door. I answered. I looked out, then down to about belt-buckle level where a rounded imp in a shawl stood on my stoop.

“Yes,” she said. “I Vietnam,” she said pointing to herself. “I look apartment.” She grazed past me into my place.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

She looked around the front room and said, “Ah, lonely man.”

“Not at all. I love fantasy situations involving helicopters and Ernest Borgnine, and, hey, what’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”

Faster than an ancient lump ought to be able to move, she whisked into my bedroom. “I look,” she called. I followed her through my bedroom and into my bathroom. A rustling shower curtain alerted me to her location. I breezed the curtain open to see her there.

“Now, hang on a minute. My place is a mess. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

Through something I wouldn’t call language, she told me that she lived down the street with her family, but she needed an apartment for her newly arrived granddaughter. She was scouting places in the neighborhood. She darted out of the shower and past me.

I chased and found her at the front door where she said, “Thank you. But, too small.”

She shut the door behind her and I was alone again with my TV show and tray of plain sushi. “Where the hell?” I said, scratching my temple and searching the area for the missing bottle of hot sauce. “That old woman stole my hot sauce!” In my mind I formulated a clever conspiracy with Asian crones roving the streets, swiping bottles of hot sauce from baffled young bachelors. “I knew it! I knew I should have punched her in the face and slammed the door!”

Rethinking my theory, I ventured into the bathroom and found the red bottle on a shelf in my shower, where I had set it down so I could usher her out.

“Yep,” I said, reclining on my couch, operating the remote control, and yawlping a spicy tuna roll into my mouth. “Hot-sauce-pilfering old women,” I said to myself. “You’re a damned genius.”

WHAT I WILL AND WON'T WATCH THIS WEEK

Thursday, April 24
Bindi the Jungle Girl
TLC 8:30 a.m.
Sure, I’ve adapted to modern living now, but when they found me, things were different. “Ollie the Estuary Boy,” they called me, “half-man, half-otter.” I still have the newspaper clippings. Don’t tell anyone because I’m supposed to be civilized now, but some nights I sneak into the harbor with a rock and a bag of clams and crack them and eat them from my tummy.

Supernatural
CW 9:00 p.m.
There’s none of this “I was a Julius Caesar” garbage. You had a past life, and it was ugly. I’m picking up vibrations now. Yes, I can sense it. In a former life your name was Blind T-Bone Pettigrew. You hailed from the Mississippi Delta and had a raunchy blues hit in the 1930s called “Eatin’ My Crawdads.” You were illiterate and syphilitic. Your woman stabbed your kidney with a broken bottle. In a fit of retribution, you killed her with a coffee can. You deservedly died by a shiv in a jailhouse riot. You were a son of a bitch.

Friday, April 25
Good Eats
Food 8:00 p.m.
An open letter to all television chefs: A decade-long flogging of an ingredient is more than sufficient. There is a world out there, beyond your grocer’s aisle, beyond your lack of imagination, beyond your dreary creations. Stop it now. Stop this vast abuse and fascination with chipotle. Sure, it was good for a while, but its time has past. Set the chipotle aside or I will cram it sideways up your nose. Thank you.

Saturday, April 26
Chop Socky Chooks
Cartoon 8:30 a.m.
What the hell? Having a predilection toward racial humor but being oddly embarrassed of it in today’s society, I’m not sure if this is offensive or my new favorite Saturday-morning ritual. Oh, rats! It’s a cartoon about Asian chickens. Well, if they forgo all the “we’re a nation of many colors” handholding b.s. and get down to the “raundry rist” of stereotypical martial arts and rice-pickin’ jokes, I’m in.

NBA Basketball
ESPN 7:30 p.m.
Networks are beginning their run of commercials for girls’ soccer. Super. Girls’ soccer. The stupidest sport ever, AND it’s played by girls. Awesome. Can’t wait.

Sunday, April 27
Nature
PBS 8:00 p.m.
If I were a dog, I’d be a weimaraner because their breed name is very close to wiener, which is hysterical. Wiener. It’s funny. Say it. SAY IT! Wiener! Ah, isn’t nature glorious.

Monday, April 28
NHL Playoffs
VS 7:00 p.m.
Fat men on ice with little sticks is not entertainment, unless the sticks are used offensively and instead of skates they wear clown shoes. Also, there should be girls in bikinis and motorcycles with those spikes in their tires. Wow, that would be a cool show.

Tuesday, April 29
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila
MTV 9:00 p.m.
When I shout hepatitis, you shout your letter! Hepatitis! Hepatitis! All right, now just the Bs! HEPATITIS!

Wednesday, April 30
Secrets of the Dead, Escape from Auschwitz
PBS 8:00 p.m.
PBS, you are bummin’ me out.

Thursday, May 1
Survivor
CBS 8:00 p.m.
Hey, one of you guys bring me back a child. I know you got kicked off and everything and didn’t win a million bucks, so, you might be a little out of place and strapped for cash. I’ll give you a coupon for free previously owned sunglasses from this week’s Pennysaver if you smuggle back a Micronesian kid for me. Not a baby. Not a grown person. Someone who’ll fit comfortably in my closet, won’t eat a lot of rice, but has a strong “doin’-the-dishes” arm.