Sunday
1/22
Faux... Ooops...
Oh the hijinks. In any case, there are of course many more subtle gaffes to be avoided in real life as well. Just this morning, for instance, I was perusing the latest issue of Planet Entertainments Party Supply and Equipment Rental monthly that had arrived in my inbox when I ran across an advertisement for, I kid you not, "The Tsunami Wave Slide" which was billed as "possibly the best themed slide in Australia."
"Hmmm," I mused to myself, "tsunami... tsunami, gosh that sounds awfully familiar." As I read on my suspicions were confirmed: "Participants climb up the face of the wave and then slide down the awesome undulating wave lane." Awesome indeed.
So, in the wake of last month's remarkable disaster, what was I to make of this now uncomfortably themed party oddity? Had some enterprising young themed-slide-designer made the best of the catastrophic event for the amusement and merriment of inland dwellers the world over? Or was it more likely that party retailers the world over had fallen afoul the reasonably harmless faux pas of blithe complacency and not considered that renting such amusements might be inappropriate? Yeah, thats my guess too.
In any case, not all purveyors of the "awesome" tsunami slide are asleep at the retail-marketing switch; there is one company in Washington that still rents the same slide but has taken care to rename it the "Hang Ten Slide."
"But Holmes," you sputter in amazement at my deductive skills, "how ever could you tell that they changed the name of the slide after the tsunami disaster struck in Asia?!?!"
"Very simple, my simpleton sidekick," I reply, "they havent completely covered their tracks as the jpeg picture file that accompanies the listing on their site is still named 'Tsunami'."
Well, enough said about faux pas for one day. After all, my past is far too checkered with mishaps worthy of Leon Schlesinger's Looney Tunes to be casting any stones... an afternoon in 1984 comes to mind when I inadvertently launched a fork in a promethean arc over a crowded lunchroom towards an ex-paramour included. Boy is that a good story...
