Trying to Be Ahead of the Joneses

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Peter Sagal, the host of NPR's news quiz WAIT, WAIT, DON'T TELL ME! has discovered that he is just like everyone else, and he's not happy about it. It all comes down to Apple. In the first quarter of the year, the technology company reported it shipped over 50 percent more computers than in the same quarter a year ago. And a lot of people got iPhones or iPods.

Peter Sagal was one of them.

PETER SAGAL: No. Don't worry. I'm not going to go on about how iAdorable my Mac is. I'm going to tell you how iAnnoyed I am, at once again being part of a trend.

Item: a number of years ago I was walking down the street musing with some self satisfaction about all the unique and distinctive things about me that make me me. For example, I happen to love Bao, that's Bao, B-A-O, the yummy steamed savory buns found in Chinese dim sum shops. I know: it's a little unusual, a little odd, but it's me. That's who I am. I'm a Bao eater. Then I turned the corner and saw a new store, an upscale fast food restaurant that sells Bao to people like me because that's what people like me like.

Item: I've been musing on getting a new car. The car of my desires is small but nimble, expensive but not flashy. Then I read that this car has been engineered for and primarily sold to people exactly like me, suburban dads in their 40s who want to en masse express our quirky individuality.

Item: sick to death of my unconscious conformity. I made a drastic decision. I would get a tattoo, something tasteful and small on the upper arm so that I could cover it up if faced with the crowd of conservative conformists. While still in the blueprint phase for this tattoo, I attended a dinner party at which all the other guests were, by strange coincidence, also 40-something suburban parents.

After a few glasses of the excellent wine were drunk, people started confessing their secret plans. All of them were going to get a tattoo. Everybody was going to get something small and tasteful and reflective of their individuality. If we had been smarter, we should have all marched over the tattoo parlor at that very minute and gotten a group rate to express our distinct selves.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to mix organic pomegranate juice with Mickey's Big Mouth Brand Malt Liquor. I'm going to drive a 1984 Chevy El Camino. I'm going to wear a weskit with flowing harem pants and go barefoot. I shall be demographic cohort of one, completely individual, orderly unique, widely believed to be a madman, but finally my own madman. And then I'm going to do a Google search on my new Mac and find out that sales of harem pants, Mickey's Big Mouth, and Chevy El Caminos have gone up 30 percent this year. I will then go back to my T-shirts and jeans and demographically appropriate car, home, food, beer, wife and kids, and I will join the largest consumer cohort of all, those that have just given in. I wonder if I can get a tattoo saying that in Chinese.

BLOCK: Peter Sagal is a would-be iconoclast. Meantime he's the host of NPR's WAIT, WAIT, DON'T TELL ME!.

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