born 8 February 1970

Alonzo Mourning, Chesapeake, Virginia, Knickerbocker knemesis

Andres Maimik, Tallinn, Estonia, writer/director

John Filan, Sydney, Australia, soccer player

Michal Rogalski, Warsaw, Poland, writer/director

Michelle Shelton Huff, Chicago, Illinois, model

Roman Knizka, Bautzen, East Germany, actor

Rozenn Le Pape, birthplace unspecified, French production manager

Stephanie Courtney, Stony Point, New York, pitchwoman

Steven Lewis Simpson, Aberdeen, Scotland, recovering stockbroker

Tamar van den Dop, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, actress

William Lorton, county of Monterey, California, video editor

Miami, in your zeal to adulate Alonzo Mourning, may I suggest that you have gone an inch or two overboard? It wasn’t enough to retire his number? You had to go and name a public high school after him? Did he ever help the Miami Heat ever win an actual NBA championship that I forgot about?!? (Oh, uh, yeah. He did. Not even that long ago. Damn. My bad.)

The winner today is someone I don’t particularly like, and that millions of people can’t stand. I’m honoring her because, for one thing, even though this page is my show, I have to recognize that sometimes people I don’t care for are wildly successful. And her achievement is suitably peculiar, and thought-provoking. Also, in actual life, she’s a friend of a friend of mine, so her private character has been favorably attested to me.

The scene: a fluorescent-lit afterlife. Could be a cut-rate heaven, or an unexpectedly tolerable hell. More likely a limbo of some sort. The too-bright room is lined with floor-to-ceiling cardboard boxes. It is unclear what, if anything, the boxes could conceivably contain. A chirpy redhead wants to talk to you about vehicular insurance products, but only on terms you feel familiar with.

Questions burble haphazardly to mind; what are any of us doing here? Why is the redhead dressed like a chain restaurant waitress? Why do my rates continue to rise with the passing of each half-year, when I distinctly recall being told, as a teenager, that a spotless driving record would, over time, cause my premiums to edge ever downward? What precisely is meant by the term “sold a bill of goods”? Why is the redhead so aggressively flirtatious? If I crash my car and maim or kill somebody, will my wages be garnished for life?

How is it possible or even legal to purvey vehicular insurance in 30-second increments of time? Wasn’t the redhead once a brunette who answered phones for Sterling Cooper? Can Microsoft Word possibly be perforating my train of thought right now by squiggly-green-underlining the word “brunette”, urging me to consider revising it to read either “brown-haired person” or “brown-haired woman”? What unwelcome fate is insurance in blackjack intended to avert? How is it that “Progressive” is an acceptable name for a putatively rapacious corporation, but not “Liberal”? Is Stephanie Courtney your real name?