My Day As A Wheel of Fortune Contestant – Part 16 – (Picking The Bonus Category)

May 9, 2020

Picking up from yesterday –

Oh boy. This is where it starts to get a little controversial, because everyone’s like “don’t ever pick thing! I would never pick thing! Thing is an awful thing to pick!”

But in my opinion, it made sense for me.

I had, of course, been studying Wheel of Fortune wildly.

And I’d tracked how I’d done on bonus round categories.

There was absolutely no way I was going to pick “what are you doing?” Never, ever, ever.

Some recent episodes I’d studied had “fixing brunch” – I would’ve never gotten fixing brunch. That’s just not a phrase I would ever think of in my life.

“Being Goofy?” I mean, generally O is the letter I guess which would’ve been helpful, but I would’ve never guessed G, thinking they wouldn’t put in a helpful g in a puzzle where you know -ing is in there. And so I don’t know that I would’ve gotten that in 10 seconds.

“Lowering the Boom”? Like WHAT?! I mean, I know that’s a thing. And working in TV, you’d think maybe I’d think of a boom mic, but like. I just always did poorly on “what are you doing” because they kept phrasing things in ways I did not understand, that didn’t super feel like things you’re ‘doing’, at least to me. So, that one was ALWAYS off the table.

Event and Thing were two of my favorite categories. I knew going in that if I had just one of those, whichever it was, I would pick it.

If I got an option for both, I was going make a split second decision and/or I would just pick whichever of those two was in the 3rd spot.

WELL… Neither was in the 3rd spot, because “what are you doing” was in the 3rd spot.

So, THEN I ALMOST chose event, because Thing was in the second spot. And 2 is my unlucky number. But then I was thinking, “you HAVE to play strategy if you get to choose between strategy and luck. And statistically you’ve done better on thing.”

Event I had generally done well on. I did feel fairly strong in it. I had gotten “buying a condo” on a show I’d recently watched. But I’d missed “dramatic face-off” and was worried there might be an event I didn’t view as an ‘event’. So, while the ones I DID know, I seemed to know swiftly; the ones I didn’t, I was really lost.

In ALL the episodes I’d studied, I had never missed a “thing” bonus round. I thought I was on a good wavelength with Wheel as what things were. I’d gotten “Obvious Fact” and “Obvious Questions.” I got “A Quiet Voice” and “Quick Comeback.” I was even yelling “Valor and Bravery” at the TV.

Thing just seemed like… the thing, if you will.

So, I picked it. And I tried to really pick it with as much confidence as I could. But you can see right before the picture fades, I look down a little, because I am worried about the fact that I didn’t pick event. But I picked my fate, so it’s time to go to the bonus round.

And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.

I'd love to hear from you! So whaddya say?